Stuck Out Here With You
by KingRiles
Summary: Why hadn't anyone from the biology department warned Peridot before they sent her off across the globe to observe the native species? Couldn't she just have watched hours of recorded footage from the database in the remote, air-conditioned recluse of her tiny apartment? No. She had to get stuck on a safari with a quirky group and get chased around by a bunch of crazy lionesses.
1. Adventure Is Out There

Peridot had been absolutely certain to have packed everything she might have required in every literal and theoretical issue that might arise during her minutely stay in the African Safari. She'd brought her passport, itinerary, travel insurance documents, an extra pair of prescription glasses, binoculars, toiletries, her preventative pharmaceuticals- quite literally everything that would fit into the compact backstrap strapped readily to her small back.

But none of these things only did so much to combat the heat of the early afternoon of the Kalahari.

Seriously, why hadn't anyone from the biology department _warned_ her before they sent her off across the globe to observe the native species? Couldn't she just have watched hours upon hours of recorded footage from the database in the remote, air-conditioned recluse of her tiny apartment? Here, it constantly felt as though she were receiving the blowing end of a hairdryer, right into her bespectacled face.

Grumpily, she snatched up the pamphlet she had received from their safari vehicle driver - a friendly, perpetually sunburnt man by the name of Gregory Universe (but he insisted to be referred to only as "Greg." Why he would demure to such a mundane alias, Peridot was clueless,) - and began to fan herself.

Her safari crewmates were quite. . . colourful, to place it mildly. Literally. Beside her, a tall, toned dark-skinned woman with a thick head of compact hair lounged, dark sunglasses positioned anonymously over quirked features. Garnet, she'd introduced herself as at the start of the tour when they'd all joined together and went over the procedures and safari etiquettes.

In front of her, a short, stocky woman had her feet kicked up against the back of the driver's chair. If Greg minded, he didn't say a thing. She had thick, fluffy, lavender-coloured hair and a lazy smirk deep enough to give an old conservative heart palpitations. Beside her was Pearl, and in Peridot's opinion, she was. . . incredibly bird-like. Long, wiry limbs and a short, swept head of pale pink hair- not to mention her, ah, pronounced nose.

At the very front, though, in the passenger seat, there was the more elusive of them. Lapis Lazuli, she'd murmured, with a head of electric blue hair and freckles smattered across her face and arms, as bountiful as the stars in faraway galaxies.

Not that Peridot had paid too much mind to her, anyways. It wasn't like she'd been absolutely, enigmatically smitten from the start. Absolutely _not_ , who could even _consider_ such a notion-

"Whoa- _whoa_ , Pearl, look at that!"

Ah, yes. The resident prepubescent teen was speaking. Peridot glanced through the corners of her eyes, spotting the blur of peach-and-pale-red that was Steven, wobbling on his knees beside Pearl. The boy was excitedly gesturing towards the zeal of zebras clustered around the edges of a small watering hole, up to their knees in the browned liquid. They weren't awfully far from them; in fact, the animals seemed rather indifferent to the presence of the safari crew.

"Look at all the zebras!" He continued, fingers drumming excitedly against the cloth wall hitched up to preserve what little false sense of security the Jeep harbored. "They're letting us get so _close_!"

Pearl hummed and gently coaxed Steven down, lips parting to speak, but Greg beat her to it. "That's because they've gotten used to us, buddy! Or, at least, they've grown used to the Jeep. They don't take too kindly to the old van. . ." He remarked over his shoulder, brow furrowing thoughtfully.

"That's because the van is coloured so loudly they could see it a _mile_ away," Pearl noted stiffly, patting the curls atop Steven's head as the boy finally sat back down in his seat, eyes still glued to the striped animals now milling just beyond the vehicle doors. Pearl raised her camera expectantly. "The animals will come closer when you're in neutral colours, you know."

"Is my hair considered a _neutral colour_ , P?" Amethyst chipped noisily in from beside Pearl, poking her head practically underneath the lithe woman's armpit and flashing Steven a trademark grin. "They don't seem too phased by this velvety mane o' mine."

"Op- _Amethyst!_ " Pearl shrilled in a loud whisper, jostling Amethyst's grinning face out from beneath her arms. If you keep speaking so loudly, they'll be phased enough to run o- oh, look, now they've begun to leave. . ." Dejectedly her arms lowered, camera in hand, as the animals began to canter some way's away from the watering hole, and thereby, the safari vehicle.

"They'll be back," Garnet chuckled from the back, earning Peridot's attention as she sent the taller woman a questioning look. How did _she_ know that?

Garnet must have sensed her incredulation, because she swore she could see her head tilt just a little bit towards her as the woman elaborated. "It's the watering hole." Peridot flushed defiantly and stuck her chin back into her palm, staring adamantly outwards at the African terrain.

"Right," Pearl sighed, stowing away her camera for now. "Now- where's the itinerary?" Amethyst shrugged lethargically. Pearl huffed and turned to shuffle through her bag. "What stop are we headed to next? Greg?"

Greg tapped pensively on the rough vinyl of the steering wheel, lips pursed. Peridot felt her lip curl. Surely, their safari guide knew the itinerary by heart? Hadn't be traversed this route a multitude of times? How else did he become so outrageously sunburnt?

"What do you say, Lapis? Where should we head next?" Greg inquired to his neighbor, an encouraging wink sent the blue-haired woman's way. Peridot saw the back of her head stifle, her freckled shoulders tense momentarily, before she relaxed and gave a small, contemplative _hrmm_.

"What about. . . the meerkat dunes? They. . should be out by now, right?"

Peridot wasn't sure what it was, but the idea of staring at small carnivorous creatures looking as if they'd been caught in the wrong place at the wrong time- all the time- didn't seem too boring right then. She sat up a little straighter, adjusting her pack and sparing a glance to the others as Greg shifted gears and began to move more swiftly over the savannah.

The journey continued, albeit a little more uneventfully. They didn't see many animals, which, Peridot wasn't shocked. One couldn't just expect to see the big five on their first safari venture. Steven waved at the zebras as the Jeep cruised past the moving group, before moving across Amethyst's lap to join Pearl on the other side of the second row, peering through her camera lense as she snapped some diminutive pictures of the bush shrikes flying in the sky.

The lot of them began to talk together, Amethyst asking Garnet for the water canteen, Pearl explaining the habitual characteristics of the birds she'd snapped in her camera roll to Steven, and if Peridot strained her ears she could hear Lapis and Greg quietly talking to one another up front. A part of her kind of wished she'd sat nearer to Lapis.

The chatter was sliced into by a small, ragged gasp from Amethyst, who was leaning over the edge of the guard and staring out at a large acacia tree, encompassed by a circle of spindly grasses and thicket bushes. The sound immediately earned Steven's attention, who appeared at her side, pressing his cheek playfully against hers as he tried to find the source of her noise. "What's _uuuu_ \- oh my _gosh_."

Steven's reaction started a domino effect, earning first Pearl's quick attention with a high sound of inquiry, then Garnet's, then finally Greg's and Lapis'. Peridot didn't know whether or not whatever had won their attention should thereby win hers, but when the vehicle rolled to a gentle, silent stop, she took it as indication it was remotely noteworthy.

With a huff, Peridot detached herself from her immense pack and hobbled up onto it, bracing her knees against its back- minding her prosthetic, of course- to look over their fat heads- didn't they know they were blocking the whole window? She wanted to see now, too!

"I- uh, I didn't think that the pride would be out so early," came Greg's voice, and Peridot thought she detected a hint of nervousness hidden behind the amicable tongue. "Gang, that there by that acacia tree is one of the only prides governed by a female lion in this side of the Kalahari. I wonder if she's out. . ." His tone drawled off, like he was looking for something.

"A lioness? Governing a pride?" It was hard to ignore the disbelief in Peridot's tone. "Oh _please_. It's in their biological nature that lionesses adhere and hunt for the male lions in their pride." She waved her hand dismissively, lips cracked into a grimace as she leaned back.

"Does she have a mane, dad?" Steven seemed undeterred by the supposed flaw of nature. Peridot couldn't say she was shocked. "A mane like other lions?"

"See for yourself." Lapis' voice came quietly, hardly audible underneath the gawking of Amethyst and the flustered squabbling of Pearl- and the silent (but- it still felt quite loud) gaze of Garnet.

Peridot couldn't help but feel inquisitive at the cursory comment. She looked over to Lapis, head ticked like she was trying to study a specimen. Lapis' arms were pulled taut, thumb tracing the same spot over her toned forearm repeatedly (whoa- _and-_ \- okay, wow, they were _toned_. Did she do track? Or just run? Or swim? Stop looking at her arms, Peridot, you useless lesbian).

Well, whatever was stifling the blue-haired mystery girl, Peridot didn't have the chance to realize yet- because Amethyst stole the whole vehicle's attention with her low, excited cackle. "Is _that_ her?"

She followed Amethyst's gesturing index finger out towards the grasslands, expecting to see nothing short of a typical lioness making her rounds.

She suddenly felt the need to compulsively contact her biology professor and enquire as to the specific genetic mutations that might render. . . _her_.

"There she is. ." Greg exhaled with a nod. "Jasper, Queen of the Nyumbani-Dunia Pride."

Prowling no more than fifteen yards away from the vehicle and its mind-boggled onlookers, a colossal lioness with deep, ginger-tinged fur was emerging from the brush. She easily dwarfed any typical African male lion in height and stature, with powerful, contoured muscles that bulged against her pelt. True to Lapis' word, a fluffy ring of hair erupted from the ruff of the beast's neck, a rich gold at its base before tapering and fading into, uncannily, a soft creamy white at its ends.

How that was even genetically possible, Peridot was unsure. She was feeling unsure about a lot of things right now. She tried to point out how the features were obviously that of a male specimen- but the shape of her temples and the contour of her maw were indication enough that. . . yep. . . that was a lioness beneath all that fluff.

The ruff of unnatural hair wasn't even the most startling part about her, though. For a split moment, the queen turned her eyes towards the vehicle, and her eyes were a sharp, dangerous, and unyielding shade of amber. Peridot had half a mind to shrink back away from her intimidating gaze. And- had that been a scar across the bridge of its nose?

"She's. . . _huge_ ," Steven murmured breathlessly. Even he seemed to realize the caution and quiet that this certain situation required.

Amethyst, however, did not.

" _Dude_! Take a look at that _girl_! Yass, _queen_! Look at'cha!"

Immediately, Pearl went to assume her place at the head of damage control, wrapping her arms around Amethyst and yanking her back with a petulant squawk. " _Amethyst_!"

Garnet chuckled with Steven, but Lapis remained stiffly unphased by the presence of the pride and its leader. Peridot blinked, taken, before she heard Greg's voice rising up over Amethyst and Pearl's squabbling. "What locals live on the game reserve called them Nyumbani-Dunia, or- in English, the Home-world Pride,- because they seemed so out-of-place as opposed to the rest of the animals on the reserve. A play on aliens, y'know? Homeworlds?"

That, at least, Peridot could appreciate, as an enthusiast of the alien motif culture. Her eyes roamed outwards to the pride of lionesses again. There were no cubs, it looked like, but then again, they were only seeing two lionesses currently, as another less notable lioness had prowled out of the brush behind Jasper. She was still quite large, though.

"Who's she, dad?" Steven piped up, obviously having seen Jasper's passive curtailer. Greg gave a shrug. "Hard to tell now- Jasper sticks out, doesn't she?"

"This one's got notches in her ears," Pearl noted, reaching up to her own to rub at the lobe. "She's awfully muscular, to note."

"Are you ogling the lions, Pearl?"

" _No_ , Amethyst. I'm simply observing them, isn't that what we're meant to be doing?"

Steven giggled and started chanting. "Buff lions! Buff lions!"

Greg laughed from the front, calming Steven's hushed chanting with a hint of remembered familiarity. "Oh, yeah- right- that's Topaz! Poor girl, she's got hearing issues from being in one too many spats with the hyenas further north."

Another lioness then bounced out of the brush, her chin stuck high, almost as if she had a sense of childish haughtiness about her. It was almost darkly comical, since she dwarfed in comparison to the other two big cats. "And her, dad?"

"Only Aquamarine could be that small and walk with her nose stuck to the clouds," Greg chuckled drily. "There are some others, and if we're lucky we might see them on a second run past this area tomorrow. But we'd best leave them be now; we don't want to hang around when it starts to get dark."

Peridot seconded that. She didn't want to be caught in lion territory before nightfall, and if the others had half a mind they wouldn't want to be caught here when the sky went dusky either. Amethyst seemed hesitant to want to leave, but soon was resigned as Greg quietly started up the safari vehicle and began to give the pride a wide berth, cruising deeper through the shivering grasses. "Now, off to the meerkats!"

"They'll pale in comparison to those beasts we just saw." Peridot said before realizing she'd used her voice instead of her subconscious to state that. "How is that Jasper even genetically possible?"

She couldn't see Greg's face, but she saw his broad shoulders bob with what she assumed was a shrug. "Beats me, kiddo. It's just a weird phenomenon that happens sometimes. I haven't done much research on the science side of it all."

Peridot faltered, sinking back into her seat as she hovered atop her stuffed pack. Jasper probably had an aberrant genetic contribution during conception, an extra Y chromosome to disrupt the femininity of her physical characteristics. Possibly infertile, she noted, not unlike the similar characteristic in other gender anomalies in cats - like the male tortoiseshell house cat.

At least her venture here from Delmarva had granted her one find worth pondering. They hadn't seen enough to see much of her behavior, but she wondered if the male characteristics bled into Jasper's personality.

 _Ugh,_ enough on that lioness, she'll give herself a headache at this rate.

She sank back, kicking her legs out over the pack, hand reaching up to scratch irritably at her good knee when she thought she felt a mosquito on it. She hadn't brought enough bug spray, she determined with a foul grimace. She folded the same leg beneath the other, hand absentmindedly resting on the knee when she felt something nudge her shoulder.

She glanced over abruptly to see a tubule of some sort being pressed unwillingly into her hands. "Uh-"

Garnet closed her hands around the tube of repellent cream, and even through her glasses, Peridot swore she just winked at her again. "Wow, thanks," Peridot mumbled, clicking open the tube and dabbing a sufficient amount of the concoction between her fingers and giving her leg a second dousing, before wordlessly handing the cream back to Garnet.

The rest of the trip towards the meerkat dunes was relatively calm, save for Amethyst and Steven stopping to gawk at a passing animal or the shuttering click of Pearl's camera. Greg would explain where they were, and what the nearby terrain did for its animals, and pointed out a notable creature when they saw one. Garnet remained a silent, but almost comfortable and steadfast, figure beside Peridot. Lapis, still, was earnestly soundless.

There were a few more animal sightings, but seemed much more mundane now that the thrill of the lioness pride has passed. The safari crew bore witness to a few baboons relaxing (or screaming, there was no in-between) when passing a dense copse of arching acacias. There were some extraordinarily small antelope specimens that Peridot recognized as dik-diks, a name that Greg had to sheepishly whisper as Amethyst balked up in laughter as they drove past. Pearl seemed disillusioned that they hadn't seen any elephants or rhinos as of yet, but Greg told her not to give up hope yet, there were still some days left in the safari tour.

It must have been a few hours since spotting the lion pride when they stopped for a small break to relax around a smaller watering hole. There were no animals aside from a few grass rats that ran up to Steven, stole a piece of ham from his sandwich, and skittered off when he wasn't looking. The boy hadn't even seemed mad, he just laughed. They got back into the Jeep when Greg noted the time, 17:00.

They had been rounding a thick tangle of scrubby bushes, Pearl pointing out a lilac-breasted roller (a pretty avian, admittedly, a shimmering blue with a rosy breast), when there was suddenly a terrible spitting sound. The others seemed immediately alarmed at the noise, thinking it a possible snake having snuck into the vehicle while they were watching some other creature, but Peridot knew the sound of a coolant system overheating. She didn't even try to withhold the groan that spilled from her lips.

"Oh boy," Greg muttered darkly from the front as the Jeep cruised to a quaking halt on the rough, coarse soil.

"What? What is it?" Pearl flustered, leaning forward to give Greg a frustrated look. "What's happened?"

Steven joined her, hand cupped around his ear as the vehicle continued making particularly concerning noises from the hood. "Uhh- is the Jeep okay?"

"I believe it's just suffered a severe coolant loss," Peridot bemoaned from behind them, hand reaching up to pinch the higher bridge of her nose. "Steven's dad, is your vehicle prone to overheating?"

Greg's face pulled taut, features blank. "Uhh- no, not really. She gets a little tired, sometimes, but-"

"Did you check that the coolant system was clean and in operable condition before we left?" Pearl cut him off, brows set deeply now that she'd processed the issue at hand.

". . Can't say that I checked particularly that."

"Of course." Peridot pressed her lips together, hands finding her hips as she re-positioned herself so she could crawl off of her pack. "Fortunately, I'm a technical engineer more than I am a biologist. If I can check inside the engine I can see what the primary cause is and what can be done."

She heard Amethyst utter a sarcastic ' _wow_ ' as all eyes in the Jeep roamed to her as she scrambled down from her seat. The clicked open the Jeep door and carefully maneuvered her way down, grunting as her prosthetic briefly became unbalanced with the brief jump down. To her surprise, Pearl was opening her door, as well, grumbling to herself. Peridot's arched brow must have revealed her skepticism.

"I'm also quite proficient in engineering," Pearl cleared her throat as she stepped out of the vehicle. "I earned my degree in mechanical engineering just shy two years ago."

"Well, aren't you special," Peridot uttered under her breath as the two marched towards the front of the Jeep. She placed her hands over her hips as Pearl opened the hood to reveal a mildly smoking engine.

Peridot cursed her height as she hovered, hands over the rim of the engine tank as she and Pearl poured over the coolant system. Her only consolation was that she was able to spot out the issue before the other mechanic. " _There_! The heater core is obviously worn, and the radiator looks as though it's about to shake out of its hold if Greg so much as turns the key again." She gestured to the faulty machine, then caught something else. "And the spark plug is worn, too," she added, an insult to an already concerning injury.

Unfortunately, Peridot couldn't do much, hand-wise. Her arms couldn't quite. . . reach, into the engine, so she allowed Pearl this one moment of control as she took a moment to assess the faces in the vehicle.

Steven and Amethyst were busily chatting with each other now, and Garnet still seemed indifferent to the world around her, arms pulled up and pinned comfortably behind her head. Greg had pulled out a radio walkie-talkie and was trying for reception. He didn't seem to be having much luck, from the worry line creasing his forehead.

She let her eyes roam to the passenger side door, where Lapis had briefly been glancing back towards Steven, before her eyes moved back and briefly met with Peridot's. A lump clogged Peridot's throat as she hurriedly lowered her eyes back down to the engine.

"This would be more convenient with tools," she determined, marching around the taller woman and over to beneath Greg's window. "If you haven't got any tools I brought a few spares in my pack. But I think it'd be up to standard that you do."

Greg's eyebrows flew up at Peridot's sudden appearance at his side, but nonetheless he nodded towards the back trunk of the vehicle. "Yeah. Yeah, I do. They should be right behind yours and Garnet's seat!" He paused, his eyes having spotted Peridot's pack that was easily thrice her size. "What's in that there pack, anyways?"

"Essentials," Peridot supplied curtly before moving to retrieve the appropriate apparatuses from the back. Fortunately, there was a cooling system filtered filler among the disorganized fray of tools, and Peridot grabbed a few other tools to hitch into her beltline before returning to the front of the Jeep.

Pearl only glanced at her through the corner of her eyes before tautly asking if there had been a wire brush back there to clean up the spark plug, which Peridot only nodded affirmation to. "You can deal with the coolants, I'll refurbish the spark plug." Pearl hummed with confirmation before setting to work with the coolant kit.

As she grumped over how this all could have been avoiding if the Jeep had gone through a check-up procedure before heading out into the African wilderness, where signal was null and the temperature far too hot, she began to work with the machine. However, her eyes kept reaching upwards, up the hood and behind the windshield, where Lapis was sitting. Was she watching her?

She didn't know if that frightened or intrigued her. She went with both.

In time soon enough, she'd done her best to clean up the spark port, but, the spark plug itself needed to be replaced. And she hadn't foreseen an issue like this popping up, not on her professional, guide-led visit into the savannah. And apparently, neither had Greg.

"What do you mean you have to wait until morning to send a rescue rover out?" He was whispering disbelievingly into his walkie. The voice on the other side, from what Peridot could tell, was warped and filled with static. "Yes, I get that, but-" Greg sighed, his thick eyebrows falling with defeat as he rubbed his hand forlornly over his jawline.

"Okay, Barb. Fortunately we had some mechanics in the crew, so we'll head back as soon as they finish." He sent Peridot a wry, tight-lipped smile through the glass, one she didn't react to apart from a quirk of the brow.

"The spark plug needs replacing, but if we're lucky then we might be able to make it back to the reserve hub before it wears out completely," Peridot told Pearl when she noted her watching her tiny hands move to finish the job. "I see you've made some progress on the coolants. . ."

Pearl's lips deepened with a small, confident smirk. "A little overheating issue is no match for my technical skill. The chain that became loose has been re-fastened, and- was there any cooler fluid in the back there?"

Peridot blanched. No, there hadn't been any coolant fluid in the back of the Jeep. "We'll need to substitute water for it," she grumbled, fishing through her pockets until she'd pulled out her smaller canteen. "It will boil away at a much more rapid rate, but-"

"It's better than nothing," Pearl interrupted, snatching Peridot's canteen and ignoring the smaller mechanic's indignant ' _hey_!' as she refilled the cooler with the kit. Peridot's nose scrunched unhappily as she stole back her now empty canteen. "What if that had been the last of my water?"

"Then I'd ask Steven to share his with you. We brought spares," Pearl replied simply, sealing the system off and snapping the Jeep hood shut with a satisfying _click_. "Try it now, Greg."

Peridot grunted, feeling sour despite knowing full well that she had spare water canteens stored in the front of her pack. _Still_.

Greg keyed the vehicle, and for a moment, the engine roared contentedly, and it gave a satisfying hum of mechanical growls.

Then it sputtered again, and it seemed to visibly sink closer to the ground, like it had grown tired and needed to rest on its tires. Peridot sighed and refrained from the urge to kick the thing with her good foot in the hopes of. . kickstarting it. Ugh, unintentional crafty puns.

"Well," Greg lamented, face wrought with disappointment. "It looks as though we'll need to find some place to camp out until Barb sends out another crew tomorrow morning to pick us up."

"You mean we're going to be stuck out here?" Peridot reiterated, just to check to be sure she'd interpreted that correctly. Greg nodded, and Peridot pressed further, growing increasingly uneasy. " _Overnight_?"

"Well, yes-"

"The temperature's going to drop by the time the sun's fallen!" Pearl fluttered, pulling at the lapels of her khaki overshirt as if envisioning the cold, crisp, dry depths of a nighttime savannah. "There has to be a solution to this- it only gave us grief for but a minute before the Jeep stalled."

"The spark plug," uttered Peridot with a grimace. "I have a lot of things in my bag, but a spare spark plug is definitely not one of them."

"So. . ." Amethyst chimed in for the first time in a bit, her expression a mix of bewilderment and uncanny excitement. "We're going to be camping out here, in the _wild_?"

"Looks like it, y'all," Greg answered lightly, scanning for reactions. None of them seemed too extreme, save for the fluttery panic painting itself white over Pearl's face and the deep frown on Peridot's lips.

Begrudgingly, Peridot and Pearl returned to the others who had begun to unpack and detach from the Jeep. Garnet had the mind to bring a spare tent fit for two, but aside from that, they had no shelter apart from the Jeep. Peridot considered the tense cushions of her seat for a moment with a grimace. At least she'd brought a sleeping bag proofed against the cold.

Steven had run off with Garnet walking leisurely after him, shouting about finding some dry kindle to begin a fire with, while Amethyst, Pearl, and Greg all worked together to pull out and stake up Garnet's tent beneath two huge acacia trees a little walk away. Lapis had gathered her things and was sitting absently on a limestone boulder, fingers wrung together like she was either deeply upset or deeply in absent-minded thought.

Peridot stood remotely by the Jeep, pack hoisted up on her back as she ran her eyes over the savannah's bruising red horizon.

This was going to be a long night.


	2. A Warm Welcome

By the time that Steven had returned with an arm-full of kindle wood, and Garnet with some rocks to place around the fire, Pearl had managed to stand the tent after both Greg and Amethyst decided to take a quick breather after wrestling with the elastic poles and tragically failing.

Peridot, begrudgingly, set her pack down against a large boulder as she watched Amethyst struggle with the fire-starter. Pearl quickly fixed Amethyst's technique, and in no time there was a small billow of embers burning into the dry kindle and starting to emit tongues of orange flame.

Sure enough, the temperature had dropped since the Jeep's failure. Peridot had dug out one of the overshirts in her bag and put it on as a second layer, tying a third around her waist for good measure. Absently, she grabbed a long stick from the ground near the stunted shrubbery and began to draw it through the pale dirt. It wasn't doing much, save for scuffing the pebbles.

"Drawing?" Came Lapis Lazuli's voice, and Peridot had to stop herself from jumping a foot into the air when she realized it came from just over her shoulder. It sounded a little sardonic, and from what she could make out of Lapis' face through the edges of her peripheral vision, she was smirking a little.

"No," she sniffed stubbornly, fingers tightening around the shaft of wood as she hoisted it and laid it over her knees. Lapis didn't say if her lie bothered her, but rather reached over and gestured for the stick. "Can I see?"

"Uh- sure." She handed the stick over, watching Lapis' slender hands seamlessly wrap around the staff. Lapis shifted on the rock, folding her legs up to her chest as she begun to twirl the tip of the wooden stick softly through the topmost layer of soil- where it was less compact.

Peridot found herself absentmindedly watching Lapis scribble, but before long her eyes had roamed up to look at Lapis instead. Her side profile was. . . uh, prepossessing, to say the least. A sleek, tapered chin, and a sleek, curved nose; her blue hair rolled down and framed her angled face, and her eyelids were lazily hung at half-mast as she watched herself. . . scrape the stick in the dirt.

Peridot also noticed she hadn't brought out a second layer to wrap up in. "Aren't you getting cold?" She found herself saying aloud, before clapping her teeth shut with an audible _click_.

Lapis looked up at that, pausing her venture with the stick, and glanced over. "A little. I don't mind it."

That answer didn't seem to satisfy Peridot, because her hands immediately traveled down to her own waist, where her third layer was wrapped dutifully around her waist. "You can- use mine. My flannel, I mean," she said, taking off the thing and holding it outwards to Lapis.

The blue-haired woman looked down at her extended hand with bemusement, and Peridot's lips tightened when she saw how deeply brown her eyes were. It was silent a moment, before Lapis huffed with what Peridot hoped wasn't amusement. "Okay, yeah. Um, thanks. . ."

"Peridot," she supplied, guessing that Lapis' drawling off was because she didn't know her name. Even if she'd said it when the crew had introduced themselves earlier that day. No biggie.

Lapis shrugged on the shirt, covering her bare shoulders. The sleeves only went just past the beginning of her forearm, but she didn't seem to mind. The two went back to watching her scrawl in the dirt, and Peridot had about to comment on how it had begun to resemble a big cat of sorts when Greg called them over.

"Hey, you two! Fire's going now, and we're going to bring out the preserves. How about it, Peridot? Lapis?"

Indeed, the others had gathered around their impromptu campfire, Steven unpacking a lumpy bag that Peridot assumed was full of foods. She didn't know if she had the stomach to eat anything right now, or if it was her hesitance to leave the little bubble she'd found on the rock with her. . . blue friend. Friend? No, crewmate. Whatever.

She was thirsty, though, so she twisted around and fished through her bag before pulling out one of her spare canteens and taking a small swig from it. As she screwed it shut she looked up to see Lapis extending a hand to her, like she was going to help her up. Peridot didn't get it at first, though, so Lapis withdrew her hand with a hum and a shrug before moving away towards the others. Peridot followed quickly after.

Pearl had opened and distributed what they could readily tear open to eat, and Steven had found a few long, skinny sticks to puncture the hot dogs he'd brought along. They sat around the campfire, and if they indulged in the moment hard enough, they might forget the sense of peril and abandonment the ambiance fostered.

Peridot, however, didn't. She was on high alert, eyes scanning their environment at every given opportunity, scanning for predator or prey alike. She froze once, hearing a rustle of grass behind them and had assumed a defensive stance- when an African savanna hare bounced out of the fronds. Everyone had a decent laugh at that.

When she'd settled again, feeling less tense now that the most dangerous thing they'd seen yet was a small, undersized herbivore, she let herself begin to alternate between the dried fruit chips she'd brought and taking sips of her canteen.

When she'd finished what was probably her fifth alternating sip, she heard another rustle in the grasses around them. She blamed a stray bat of wind, or the same hare bounding through the brush like the listless mammal it was.

She sniffed, staring down at her canteen, before her lips quirked uneasily. There was no wind now that night was falling. And that rabbit had run away from the grass, not into it.

Peridot frowned. Something felt off. While Amethyst was continuing her story about how she once strapped an airhorn to her clueless wrestling coach's office chair she scanned the tall grasses around them. Her gaze then moved past Steven's shoulder, out to where the Jeep was resting.

She couldn't hear anything remote above the churring of the cicadas and the prattling of Amethyst, but when she heard a twig crunch, she snapped to attention.

" _Hey_ ," she hissed to the others, going unheard by all except Lapis and Steven, who turned to look at her curiously. "What is it, Peridot?" The boy asked first, following her concerned gaze as it flitted back and forth between the fire and the vehicle.

"I heard something," the small mechanic contended, fists tight over her lap as she narrowed her eyes, cursing the fire for its small plume of smoke that obscured her already cruddy vision.

"You might hear that out in the wild," Pearl supplied matter-of-factly from the other side of the fire, having started paying attention when Steven spoke. Peridot shook her head defiantly. "No- I would know what a passing animal sounded like- especially if it was smaller. This was- bigger."

Amethyst had stopped her story-telling at this point, paused mid-word as she tried to gain the attention she'd lost back. "Probably just some warthog passing by. It probably thought the hot dogs smelled tasty."

"That's cannibalism, Amethyst!" Steven gasped playfully, shouldering her. "What was it, though? Dad?"

Greg didn't seem to be taking to Amethyst or Steven at all, his eyes set on the Jeep in the distance. Nervously, Peridot followed suit, but couldn't see much apart from the vehicle's silhouettes.

Wait, silhouettes? As in, plural?

Peridot blinked. She thought that the person on the other side of Greg's line had said the next vehicle wouldn't be there to help them until morning came? She screwed her eyes again, blaming the fire for the supposed illusion, before a low, resonant, and dangerous growl made her chest shake with fright.

"Lions," Lapis tensely whispered, automatically moving up from her seat and moving in the direction opposite the imposing creatures.

"Wh- but that's impossible," Greg notioned. "The last lions we saw were Jasper's pride, and that was hours ago!"

The crease between Lapis' brows deepened coolly. "Then we've been followed."

Pearl looked disbelieving. "Oh, please. Lions? Following us? They didn't show even a scrap of interest in us when we passed them by."

"But- they have good noses, right?" Steven gestured to his own, brows knit together thoughtfully. "Couldn't they have just followed the scent trail, or- oh gosh, what was it that Connie was talking to me about a few days ago. . ."

Pearl tutted. "It's not a question as to how, Steven, but as to _why._ "

Peridot growled quietly, hands fastening tightly over her overshirt lapels as she glared daggers into the shadows. "Like why we aren't getting out of here! There are lions not twenty feet away from us, and we're sitting around a fire like sitting ducks!"

A whipping snarl from not far off cut her off before she could rant some more, and Peridot quickly yipped with alarm and scrambled off the log, trying to reach the other side of the campfire where more people were beginning to nervously rise.

"O-Okay. . ." Peridot stuttered breathily. "What are they doing now? Are they deflecting? Or- or are they coming closer?"

"Uhhh-" Amethyst looked over her shoulder towards where the Jeep was. The shadows that had been surrounding the jeep had slinked off, but now there was a low, hissing sound emitting from that area. It sort of reminded Peridot of a deflating balloon, but the fact that she didn't know what was making it made it more terrifying.

Peridot turned around, ready to make a personal run for it, but stopped dead when warm, wet, and bloody breath billowed into her face.

Standing no more than two feet in front of her was an enormous lion, his features and tattered mane illuminated by the red tongues of flame jumping off the campfire. No- wait- _her_ features. She recognized that ragged scar across her nose, and the penetrable yellow of her eyes.

Jasper.

Peridot, admittedly, was too shocked to move. Fear coursed like cold ice through her veins, clogging and freezing her in place, despite how inconvenient it made things for her chances of survival. Her mouth gaped like a fish's as she heard gasps from the other safari members. She remembered, in the back of her mind, her fifth grade educator telling her and her classmates that in the event of a predator attack- make yourself look bigger.

It didn't help that she couldn't move, but even if she stood on her very tippy-toes, Jasper still stood a whole head taller than her. A whole lion head.

"Peridot," Greg whispered roughly from somewhere behind her, but his voice was about as clear as his garbled walkie-talkie signals to Peridot. "Peridot, walk backwalks to me, _slowly_."

 _Oh, sorry, Greg, I'm just busy trying not to show this beast I'm easy pickings for a late night snack!_ Peridot wanted to shriek, but there was no oxygen in her lungs to make any sort of noise right now other than a gargled like, ' _eep._ '

The noise was enough to warrant Jasper's attention, and before Peridot knew what to do with this registry, sharp, knotted fangs bared behind dark lips as- _oh god_ \- Jasper's pupils dilated.

She wasn't ready for death, even if it was a swift one. How would she apply for a management position at Area 51? Or assume the role of the head administrative mechanic at NASA when they finally recognized her superior technical abilities? Or find the cure for cancer? Or-

Suddenly there was hotness and a lot of orange, and Peridot found herself being thrust backwards with a cry as a hand pushed her back, and Lapis assumed her position in front of Jasper, her hand holding the stick Peridot had given her, completely eaten over with flames as she waved it threateningly in Jasper's muzzle, signalling sternly for the others to ' _get going_!'

Hands caught her before she could tumble into the open, hungry flames, and she was dragged backwards by who she assumed was Garnet, judging by how she was lifted off the ground and held in a firm grasp. "We need to go," the tall woman muttered, voice void of the quiet warmth Peridot had grown accustomed to today.

No one was against the idea of getting the hell out of there. The group moved as a unit, with Lapis at the front, walking backwards towards where they knew the Jeep would sit. Metal walls were more protective than the grass. Death was slightly less probable in the Jeep than out here in the open, Peridot decided, wriggling to get down from Garnet's grip and resigning to shuffling back herself.

Meanwhile, Lapis seemed to be holding her own remarkably well against Jasper. Not once did their eyes separate, the burning stick held low between them, jabbing forward whenever the lioness dared make a risky move towards her, or any of her crewmates. Peridot felt her heart leap into her throat on more than one occasion when the lioness gave a deep-throated chuff of frustration, or made a more threatening noise, like a growl or a snarl.

She wouldn't be able to make eye contact with any domestic cats for months after this.

Amethyst was the first to stop, starting a chain reaction with the rest of them as she stared in disbelief at the Jeep. "What?" Pearl was the first to hiss with inquiry. "What's wrong, Amethyst?"

Steven, who had been clinging to Amethyst and shielded by his father, followed Amethyst's petrified gaze and gaped himself. "The tires. . ."

Ah.

That had been the low hissing noise from earlier.

Peridot stole a quick, panicked look back to the Jeep. Its tires, built for the rugged, unruly terrain of the African bush, had been torn apart by what could have only been claws and teeth. Gaping holes were shredded into the carbon rubber, scattered across the ground and under their shuffling feet.

"What is it?" Lapis hissed over her shoulder at them, evidently growing weary of needing to fend off Jasper for so long. Peridot sensed some other sentiment in her tone, but she couldn't place it, what with all the apprehension that was currently manifesting inside of her like a virus.

"The tires are toast," Greg breathed, face hard in the dark. "But we can still get inside. I'll bring up the windows and. ."

"You don't have to tell me twice!" Amethyst hissed, making a break for it to the Jeep, much to Steven's alarm and eminent dismay. "Amethyst!" He whisper-shouted after her as she careened to a stop in front of the sunken vehicle, took a glance inside, then backpedaled frantically towards them again. "Nope, nope, _nope_ -"

"What's wrong now?" Peridot trembled with frustration. Amethyst, face worn dry of any humor and now dark with sobriety, pointed towards the second seat row of the Jeep, where they could make out Topaz lazily lounging, her tail flicking irritably over the door where Amethyst had just been standing.

"Lion in the Jeep!" Steven squeaked, leaning into Greg as the man hurriedly surveyed their surroundings for some sort of refuge to escape the predators. Peridot saw his eyes light up when he seemed to spot something he liked.

"There's a big patch of brambles over there," he muttered quietly to the crew, and Peridot could tell with a grimace how this plan was going to unravel. "The pride won't want to follow us into the prickles."

"Uh, yeah, I wouldn't want to do that, either!" Amethyst spat back, eyes broad as she glanced back towards Lapis, who was beginning to stumble under the ferocious advances of Jasper at the front of the group. "But, uh- I don't think we have a choice in this."

"How do you suppose we're going to _get_ over there? They're practically on _top_ of us," Pearl added, the panic in her tone betraying the austerity of her pale face.

"We make a break for it." Garnet's stoical voice was steady and firm, unlike the quivering voices of the others. Peridot couldn't help but look to her, first as if she were incredulous, and then with hope that she had a plan. She seemed the type to have a plan.

But, wait.

"I thought the absolute worst thing to do during a lion attack was to run away from it?" Peridot questioned through gritted teeth, uneasily looking back to where Jasper had snapped her teeth at Lapis again. Much to her credit, Lapis didn't so much as flinch as she did rebuff the attack with a flaming parry of her own.

Garnet's lips sunk, before she saw a sliver of white against the light of the fire. Jesus Christ, was she smiling at a time like this? "We'll make it," she said. "Now go!"

Again, Peridot had to wonder _how_ in the name of everything holy Garnet knew something like that. But she didn't have the energy, means, or even the courage to interrogate her and accuse her of lying. Or maybe it was because she felt there was a glimmer of knowing in Garnet's voice.

The others didn't waste any time in following Garnet's orders. Amethyst and Greg were running alongside Steven at the head of the running party, throwing frantic glances back at the others as Pearl and Garnet began to pelt off after them.

Peridot had begun to follow in earnest before realizing a certain blue-haired someone was still distracting Jasper. "Lapis!" Peridot squeaked, turning heel and gawking at the continuing standoff- one that Lapis looked like she was about to lose.

"We have to go! Now!"

Lapis' eyes roamed briefly away from Jasper's to meet Peridot's, and in that moment of distraction, Peridot saw the lioness' muzzle contour into a snarl and a snap. Sensing the coming attack, Peridot stole the flaming staff away from Lapis and threw it fearfully into Jasper's face.

Peridot's fingers gripped Lapis' lended overshirt with a strength she didn't normally possess and pulled her along with the rest of the group as they made haste after their crew members.

Peridot and Lapis sprinted to catch up with the others, ignoring the outraged, guttural roars expounding from what could have only been a very furious, very incensed Jasper.

And, of course, that's when Peridot's knee decided it really, really wanted to begin hurting. Honestly, all those years of physical therapy to compensate for her peripheral arterial disease and subsequent amputation, and she couldn't even run for a solid ten seconds before the pain began to blossom.

"H-Hold up!" She panted, feeling her prosthetic wobble precariously in its gel socket. "Wait! My leg, it's-"

Before she could even finish, she felt pumping arms wrap underneath hers, and another that swooped up her legs and carried her bridal-style. She didn't even have the breath to protest, so she just wheezed indignantly as she was carried by a stern-faced Lapis after the others who were already in the brush, waiting for them with wide, frightened eyes.

When they reached the brambles, Lapis set down the wide-eyed Peridot, who promptly went to check on the stability of her prosthetic apparatus. The sudden jolts had only knocked the socket ball loose, but it was enough to cause her grief without the correct tools to amend the issue.

And, naturally, all her useful tools were trapped in her bag, back at the campfire.

"Did they- _huff_ \- did they chase after us?" Steven's shaky voice came up after a rough minute of nothing but collective panting and the regaining of what little bearings the lot of them had left.

Peridot didn't want to check to see if the predators had tailed them. She didn't want to think about the second sprint they might have to make to escape them if they were keen on brambles stuck to their noses.

Speaking of. . . Peridot stepped keenly away from a low-lying branch of bramble burrs, hugging her arms close to her for fear of being pricked. The last thing she needed were scrapes that could get infected now that she was separated from the medications she'd packed.

"No, I don't. . think they did," she heard Lapis say, and glanced up with a sheepish flush of colour to see Lapis hovering directly over her, eyes cast leeward to spot out their assailants and if they had given chase.

"I can still see Jasper by the campfire," Pearl offered, which came as a relief to the lot of them. . . except for the fact that the campfire is where all of their resources were. "The small one's just come out to join her."

"So the pride did follow us." Garnet's voice was blunt Stoic, but full of a pensiveness that went beyond what Peridot _assumed_ to be her years. "We will need to wait until they leave to return to the campfire."

"Well no _duh_ ," Amethyst grunted, kicking a rock petulantly into the shrub. "I'm not heading back and facing off against that thing, _nuh-uh._ I'd like to keep my life, thanks."

With the thought of facing off against the lionesses in mind, Peridot found her gaze moving back up to Lapis'. Coincidentally, they matched gazes for a moment, one pair green and shimmering with unshed tears of either pain or fear, and the other brown pair deep-set, dark with brooding and what Peridot thought was trepidation-which was fair.

"Th-thank you," she found herself stammering up at her, arms clinging tighter to her chest. "For saving me."

"A-And the rest of us!" Steven chipped in, walking shakily over and wrapping his arms warmly around Lapis' midriff. "That was really brave of you, Lapis! Facing off against Jasper like that! It- it gave us the chance to move out and get away!"

Even in the darkness of the savannah night, Peridot could see colour rushing up into Lapis' cheeks. "It- it was nothing, Steven," she consoled, patting the boy's head as he pulled away. The blue-haired woman glanced up through her messy navy fringe, chancing a glance at Peridot before saying, "it was her who threw the fire at Jasper so we could make it here."

Now it was Peridot's turn to flush.

"But you did keep her attention," Greg lauded, clapping his hand softly but gratefully over Lapis' shoulder. "And that in itself- well, even I'd have gotten cold feet if I even so much as made eye contact with her!"

"Well, it- isn't the first time," Lapis dismissed softly, but before any of them could really register what that insinuated, a raucous bird's call from overhead made them stifle. They only relaxed partially when they realized that it wasn't any sort of threatening bird of prey, but instead an African grass owl perched in the stunted ash tree just beyond the bluff.

When that brief rattle passed, Garnet was the one to rally them back together. "Regardless, I think we all did well. Despite the loss of all of our gear." She paused. "Now I suppose we wait."

Peridot grimaced, hands moving to rub absent-mindedly at her sides to warm them. She was still hot with adrenaline from the macabre thrill of the chase, but as the group reassembled and lowered their guards - little by little - she could tell they were getting fidgety as their body temperatures chilled.

Peridot found a slate of boulder to sit on, not content with dirtying up her pants by laying in the dirt like Amethyst and Steven were. Garnet had taken guard near the edge of the bramble cove, leaning up against the trunk of the ash tree. She'd taken off her shades some time ago to better see in the dark now that she knew there was trouble afoot.

Peridot roamed aimlessly around the brambles, hugging her arms to herself. The moon had risen now, and it cast a shallow, luminous glow across the savannah, tinging everything in a watery shade of silver. The dry air seemed to finally be affecting her after breathing so heavily earlier, so she patted at her pocket to dig out her canteen- before remembering she'd dropped it in her haste to get away from the campsite.

A grumble emissioned from her throat as she scratched her temple, swatting away a nettlesome gnat that was buzzing at her ear. She glared after it as it buzzed off, and just beneath her elevated line of sight sat Lapis, tugging at the sleeves of the flannel Peridot had given her earlier. For some reason it made Peridot's chest twinge. What it twinged with, she didn't know and didn't care to find out right now.

With a resolute huff, Peridot moved over, dodging a wayward bough of brambles and sidled in beside Lapis. "So. . ."

"Thanks." Lapis spoke before Peridot had the chance to meander any further, and Peridot stiffened, before deflating and leaning back on her hands beside the other woman. "Uh- yeah, no problem."

A beat of silence.

Peridot looked over to Lapis, a glint of curiosity embedded into her gaze. What had she meant when she'd said it hadn't been the first time? Had she dealt with lions before?

She then noticed she'd asked that out loud instead of in her head, because Lapis had looked over to her with nothing short of surprise- and maybe a little bit of apprehension. "What do you mean?"

"I-I mean! You said it wasn't your first time- with the lions," Peridot clarified with a stutter, fingers wringing into the loose fabric of her khaki shorts. "Have. . . you run into some before?"

She didn't think she was crossing a boundary or anything here, so when Lapis' face screwed up with disdain she felt a flicker of perplexion shoot through her. The foul expression went as soon as it came, though, and Lapis pulled her lips tight. "Yeah. . I have. It's, um- I come here a lot."

Peridot nodded once, understanding. "With them?" She asked, pointing over towards the others were hiding in the shrubs.

Lapis offered a bland little smile. "Only recently. I knew them before it happened."

Now _that_ piqued Peridot's interest. It showed in her face, her expectancy, and Lapis seemed to realize she had accidentally relayed too much. Her freckled face blanked and she withdrew her hands from her sleeves in favor of folding them tensely over her lap.

Peridot pressed, still. ". . _It?_ "

Lapis realized that there was no backtracking from there now that it had been recognized. She deflated slightly, blowing out her cheeks, before giving Peridot a single look and beginning to shed the flannel. Peridot was taken aback, admittedly, especially when Lapis began to tug at the straps of her tank top to show her more of her back-

A back that had a deep, ragged scar across it, almost mimicking the shape of a teardrop, had it not been such a grim sight. She shuddered to think of what might've caused such a wound as Lapis redressed, pulling at the collar of Peridot's spare shirt before her arms fell down to her sides.

"I was on a tour like this one. Greg and Steven weren't there. Neither were their friends." She tilted her head promptingly towards Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl, respectively. "I wandered a little too far from the camp when we stopped to take a drink and- ran into them."

". . . the lions?"

Lapis received pause, then proceeded to shake her head. "No. Nyumbani-Dunia. That scar? Jasper managed to get me while I was down, and-"

Peridot's eyes went huge. "You mean- that lioness- the same one that just attacked _our_ campsite- attacked you? _Before_ this?" How had she faced that thing face-to-face again? Peridot would've been beside herself with horror.

Lapis nodded mutely. "I wasn't completely helpless, though. I had my pocket knife on me, so. . ."

Suddenly the heavy scar on Jasper's face made much more sense to Peridot. "Do. . ." She weighed the question thoughtfully. "Do the others know about that? About- y'know, Jasper and you?"

Lapis shook her head 'no'. "They just know it was a lion in the savannah. I didn't. . have to tell them which one," she demured, rolling her shoulders as she raised a palm and cupped her chin in it, twisting around to look at Peridot. "How about you, short stuff? What kind of lions have you faced in your lifetime?"

Peridot rubbernecked, lips pulled up into a pensive pout as Lapis smirked down at her. But the minute their eyes met, the defiance melted. There was a humored twinkle in Lapis' eyes, she noted, which made her relax. Slightly.

"Other than the lioness queen I just literally slapped in the face with a flaming torch?" She rasped cheekily. "No. I can't think of any. I wasn't even supposed to be on this cloddy safari."

"Oh?" Lapis urged. "How so?"

"Now I suppose it's time to tell you my life story, huh?"

Lapis gave a conceding hum, leaning back. Peridot resigned for a bemused sigh, folding her own good leg up and over her prosthetic. "I was sent by my university to observe the natural tendencies of the sub-Saharan animals. I don't understand why I wasn't allowed to just, watch days' worth of videos alone in my apartment and take notes from there."

"Sounds more boring, doing that," Lapis commented. Peridot felt inclined to believe her, having literally experienced the thrill of being alone in the middle of the safari.

Well, not _alone_ , but the point was still poignant.

"So. . . that's _not_ from a lion attack?" Lapis asked, eyes roaming down to Peridot's prosthetic leg. Peridot couldn't help but give a small cackle. "God, no. I had a disease that nullified the arterial nerves in my leg. It was amputated when I was no older than twelve, so, no."

The light in Lapis' eyes twitched as she brought a knee up to lean on, humming apologetically. "Sorry. Thought it'd lighten the mood a bit."

And as it turned out, it had. Peridot had been able to forget the dread of their predicament for a moment, instead a light, mirthful feeling clouding in her chest as she stared out at the dark savannah. "Heh, yeah."

It really was beautiful out here. The grass tickled against an unruffled breeze, moving in tandem with the thick bunches of Spanish moss clinging to the stunted African trees spotting the area. The moon only lit up so much, but there was just enough of a silver sheen to make out the glistening shapes. Beside her, Lapis' face was highlighted by the gentle wreath of light, and idly, Peridot wondered how her own face looked.

Not that she wanted it to look. . . good, for anyone but herself.

"Do you think they'll come back?"

Peridot's head perked up and out of its lull, pushing her glasses back up her nose to regard Lapis. Her eyes were tied to the dark, shadowy horizon, where in the dimness you could just make out the outline of the Jeep.

If there were lionesses stalking around its wheels, her vision was too shoddy to properly see them in this awful lighting.

"I don't know," she admitted truthfully, even if it always pained her the tiniest amount to admit to being an unreliable source of information. "You seem to be more familiar with them than I am. What do you think?"

Lapis gnawed slightly at her lip, drumming her fingers against the bare skin of her knees. "I don't know, either."

For all their sakes, they both hoped that the pride would lose interest in them by dawn.


	3. On The Run

Peridot's eyes snapped open in a hurry, met first with a blurry blackness, and as her hands fumbled to detect and put on her glasses, a less blurry blackness.

Had she fallen asleep? Peridot shakily hoisted herself up onto her bottom, back aching plaintively from laying on the cold, compact earth for who knew how long. She checked the digital watch wrapped around her wrist to see it revealing that it was just about to be one in the morning.

Despite the darkness, and the dry, windless chill in the air- Peridot felt warm. She wondered sleepily why that was, bleary eyes moving around her to- _gyAHhH!_

Peridot shot upright, realizing that her personal space bubble had been thoroughly invaded by a messy head of blue hair, still snoring quaintly away next to where Peridot had succumbed to slumber. Had- had she fallen asleep next to _Lapis_ or had Lapis fallen asleep next to _her_? Regardless, holy _stars_ , what a way to wake up!

Even in the darkness, though, Peridot could make out the ample pour of freckles on what showed of her face through her hair, but she had her knees drawn in to her chest for warmth beneath the flannel she'd given her.

The sight made her heart wince for a weird reason.

She scraped the back of her dusty hand over her eye, then immediately regretted it when a few motes got trapped between her eyelids. With a low grumble, she swiped them away with her thumb, before looking up to see Garnet still positioned against the tree, staring outward at the quiet savannah.

Well, as quiet as the nightlife here could be. The sounds of the cicadas at bay was comforting enough, but Peridot was afraid it would mask the lower sounds of large paws crushing granite and twigs and render them shocked when a lioness burst through the bush.

Yeah. Not the most consoling feeling, that one.

Peridot heaved herself up onto her own two feet and moved quietly, minding where she put her feet as to not stomp on someone's unsuspecting fingers. She weaved her way in between two outstretched boughs and stumbled behind Garnet, stopping short when she nearly ran into her backside.

When there was no reaction from Garnet, or any indication that she was aware of Peridot's newly arrived presence, Peridot pinched her lips and snuck around her, staring up at Garnet's face.

She tried not to yelp when Garnet's eyes snapped open and a mellow smirk lined her lips. "Hello, Peridot."

" _Uh- gyuh-_ -" Peridot recomposed herself, shaking her head clear of the sleep-induced cobwebs she could feel gnawing at her intellect. "Hello."

"Come to take my place as night guard, have you?"

"Wh- _no_ , I'm just-"

Garnet raised a hand knowingly, and Peridot found herself effectively rendered soundless as the land sank back down to rest at her hip. Peridot moved over, a hand rubbing over the fabric on her shoulder as she stared out into the night. She could make out splotches of darkness on the horizon but she knew those were trees. She looked sideways at Garnet. "Any sign of them?"

"Negative," Garnet consoled, and Peridot felt herself sink into her skin with relief. She didn't want to chance another sprint, not when it was practically dark enough to be unable to spot a lion even if it was only a few yards ahead of you. "Uh, good. What time did Greg say the others would be dispatching our rescue?"

Garnet shrugged placidly. "Didn't specify. He only said once the sun was up."

"Wonderful." Peridot sighed, arms folding to press into her back to alleviate the steady ache that was caught in her spine. Then her attention flipped back to Garnet, speculative, and almost a little skeptical. "Aren't you going to sleep?"

Garnet smiled slightly, like the thought of it was amusing. "Not when there's a camp to be watched," she mused. "Unless you're willing to assume that role until someone else wakes up to keep a lookout."

Garnet didn't sound too blighted by a night of deprived sleep, but Peridot thought it at least, to some moral degree, upsetting that one of them had to go more than a quarter of the night without some sort of rest. What constituted keeping watch, anyways? Staking out a place and keeping an eye out for the pride, or any other undesirable creatures, that might try to sneak into their little hideout and tear them up in their sleep?

Now that she thought about it, acting as look-out was somewhat stressful. Nevertheless, her moral compass still twitched uncomfortably, and she ceded with a resolute huff. "I will. You can. . . lay down, or something."

Peridot's features tightened behind her glasses as Garnet leaned away from the tree trunk and patted her shoulder as she brushed by, remarking something like, "I knew you would," before- in a pretty brisk, fluid manner- the woman fell stomach-first, catching her head in her crossed forearms and- _stars,_ was she already asleep? _Wow_.

Peridot's brows tensed as she mimicked the pose Garnet had been maintaining earlier, the bark pressing into her shoulder as she let her eyes roam over the African wilderness, left to her own devices and thoughts.

She shouldn't have even agreed to attending such a primal event. They could have easily sent Jenny or Buck instead, but she supposed being at the top of her class had made her an immediate attendee for this sort of expedition- even if she knew next to nothing about surviving out in the wilderness with nothing but the clothes on her back.

Which, literally, was the predicament she was struck with currently.

Her mind then roamed to the others who were stuck in the same predicament. Garnet continued to be a. . . mystery character, to her, but she felt she could be trusted. She always seemed to know something the others didn't, and Peridot, begrudgingly, had to respect that.

Steven and his father were friendly- if not a little dense, in her eyes, at least. They seemed to know the others on the trip, so Peridot felt like she had the full liberty of claiming to feel like an alien in an already developed civilization. The simile she'd used made her chuckle.

Pearl and Amethyst- Peridot wasn't sure. Was it a love-hate thing? Pearl seemed to fluster and squabble with her, but behind each other's backs, their faces softened and they smirked like it was a game. Nonetheless, they seemed to both dote over Steven. Pearl seemed to assume the more maternal role, and Amethyst seemed more like the bigger sister who dragged him wherever she went. Peridot was suddenly thankful she had been an only child.

Then there was Lapis Lazuli. She let her eyes roam away from the horizon and find Lapis' form back where she had left her, noting that her arms had outstretched to lay where Peridot had been sleeping. Imagine if she'd still been there when Lapis stretched out like that! That would have been even harder to explain if they'd both waken up at the same time, wrapped up together like that. Just imagining it- _no, no, I am not blushing_ , _absolutely_ not.

Peridot shook her head clear and willed her gaze away, re-adjusting her glasses with a sniff. It didn't matter. The two of them would part ways as soon as the dispatch reached them in the morning, carted off to probable opposite sides of the world again.

. . . Why did that leave an odd, unsatisfactory feeling at the front of Peridot's chest?

Stubbornly, Peridot lowered her glower to the ground, staring at her worn boots like they had somehow greatly offended her. She willed her mind to, for once, be absent and still as her eyes rose to scour their surroundings.

As easy as it was to let her mind roam, it was equally as easy to quiet it down for the sake of preserving her uninvolved emotional state. She didn't need to be getting attached now. If 'attached' was even the adequate term to describe. . .whatever it was she kept finding herself pondering over.

Her stomach gave a discontent grumble, and her arm reflexively wrapped around it with a frown. Snacking only on dried apricots earlier seemed cloddy, in hindsight.

With that in mind, dubious green eyes roamed up to where she _thought_ she could make out the outline of the two large acacias where they'd made their camp. She wondered. . . if Garnet hadn't seen any of the lionesses yet, what were the chances that Peridot would? A brief hike to the Jeep nearby there would be nothing short of five minutes, to-and-back. She could grab her pack, clean up the scuffs and scrapes she'd acquired throughout the day's misadventures, and probably patch up the others, too, if they'd needed it. Or get another layer and place it over Lapis, since she still looked a little cold, to top.

The do-gooder smirk that plastered itself to her lips was evidence enough of her newfound enthusiasm. Peridot stood upright, dusted herself free of any splinters she might have acquired from the ash tree, and began to march with quiet pride over to the silhouette of the Jeep. Jasper and the others must be gone by now, right?

About thirty yards into her march towards indefinite salvation and Peridot was beginning to seriously doubt that. For any careful step she took, she heard another behind her, pausing when she did, moving when she did. Like it was mimicking her.

Peridot gulped nervously, wondering if, in any of her lessons, her professors had explained the hunting habits of big cats. All she could think of in that moment was how the movement of their tails revealed their intentions- but it wasn't like she could see any tails in sight, and she sure as all hell wasn't about to turn around to check. So that bit of information was completely and utterly useless.

Still, to test her hypothesis that she was being followed, Peridot took a leap forward, and stopped. Just a heartbeat later, the sound of something else crunching the brittle grass sounded from behind her.

 _Okay,_ Peridot steeled herself. _Okay. You can turn around and face a probable apex predator. You just threw fire at Jasper's face. And it's highly advised to never turn your back to one_. But, stars, it felt so much easier to just keep her eyes on the Jeep like there wasn't some beast behind her waiting for a moment of disadvantage. A sharp inhale, and Peridot was counting with her fists taut at her sides. _One. . . two. ._ .

" _Three_!" Peridot whirled around, only just managing to catch herself before falling for spinning around too quickly, and made eye contact with-

" _Lapis!_ "

With her shoulders having been readied to pivot her arms outward and frighten off whatever had been following her, she hadn't expected a shift of her weight and thereby balance- making her fall flat on her behind as Lapis stood a few paces behind her, hip crooked and hands moved up to cover her lips. Peridot assumed she was trying to conceal her smile.

"What was _that_ for!?" She spluttered from the ground, rubbing her hand where she'd scuffed it a little too roughly over a patch of grit. "I thought you were a lion stalking me!"

"Sorry," Lapis proffered, but she didn't look sorry in the slightest. "I just saw you, leaving the post. I was curious."

"Then why didn't you just call out instead of following me?"

Lapis rolled her neck around. "It would've been less funny than what happened instead." She strode over to Peridot, giving her a helping hand up, which made Peridot equal parts thoughtful and equal parts reluctant. She accepted it anyways, patting down her backside to get rid of the unwanted dust as Lapis asked, "where are you going?"

"The Jeep," Peridot informed. "I figured since there's been no hide nor hair of the pride since their attack they must have lost interest and went to hunt some other less difficult creatures. I wanted to get my pack."

Lapis was silent a moment, then hummed her concession. "All right. And you're _sure_ that they're gone? You did say that you were a biologist earlier."

She'd been listening earlier? Smugness permeated Peridot's face in the form of a simpler for half of a heartbeat before she beckoned Lapis and began to move back towards the waiting vehicle. "Almost certainly."

Lapis smiled wryly. "That 'almost' makes me nervous."

"So should walking out at night in the middle of the savannah, yet here we are."

The two of them moved wordlessly then the rest of the way, successfully reaching the Jeep and checking its innards for any signs of large feline presence. There were none, aside from the lingering scent of musty fur and the stuffing torn up and out of the seats by huge claws, courtesy of Topaz.

She grabbed her pack from the seat furthest in the back, while Lapis went to retrieve her own bag. It was diminutive in size in comparison to Peridot's, but Peridot still prided herself on her diligence and readiness, despite the. . . callous situation they were in.

She digged in the front pocket of her bag, searching for a canteen to quench the thirst that made her throat itch- and frowned when only one container remained. Where had the others- _oh._ Right. Her first smaller container had been used to try to fix Greg's coolant system, and the other was presently sitting abandoned near the campfire.

She was thirsty, but, she knew better than to waste the last of her resources out of _want_ , rather than need. So she tucked the container into her pocket and hoisted the gargantuan thing up onto her back. Her eyes found Lapis as she clambered sideways out from the Jeep.

Peridot stopped to sit on the edge of the seat, hands resting between her knees as she watched the other re-adjust the strap of her satchel. "What do you do," she realized she was saying, "when you're not. . _here?_ " She gestured to the night with a tilt of her head.

For a moment Lapis was quiet, continuing to fix her strap before she seemed content with its position over her shoulder. "I coach," she said loftily, like her voice was teetering on the edge of a bleak laugh. "Not here, not in Africa. I live in the U.S., Delmarva. I'm a swimming and surfing coach in Beach City."

Now that Peridot had to respond with a stunned silence. Lapis Lazuli lived not here, but in a tiny, diminutive beach town not one hundred miles away from Peridot at university at the Delmarva capitol. She didn't tend to believe in coincidences, but internally, she was now praising whatever deity and manifested the concept of it to the earth's end. Apparently she'd been musing over it for a few moments too long, because Lapis was looking at her oddly. "Peridot?"

"I said that's a. . . notable coincidence," Peridot confided. "I live at the Delmarva capitol, go to the university there."

Lapis' facial features contorted and augmented as a coy smirk fell over it, and Peridot just damn near felt her heart ascend to the sky. "I swore I would've heard the geeky prattling from you across the state," she jestered. "Proud BCU drop-out here."

"Why'd you drop out of Beach City? I heard their technical and theatre programs are _fantastic_."

"Are you a thespian too, on top of a biologist and impromptu mechanic, Peridot?"

Peridot shuddered at the thought. "I'd prefer to keep to the computer science lobbies, thank you."

Lapis laughed through her teeth and leaned against the edge of the door in front of Peridot, fingers toying with her blue fringe. "Figures."

Peridot's brow arched with sportive interest. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, nothing." She was waved off dismissively by Lapis before the two lapsed, once again, into relative silence in their solitude. Then Peridot spoke up. "Why do you keep returning here? Doesn't being out here make you. . ." She drawled off, unable to think of a way to adequately word the idea she wanted to convey. Fortunately, Lapis seemed to register where she had initially been headed.

"I go with Steven and his dad when they come," she admitted with a sad smile. "They come from Delmarva. The others do, too. Small world, huh?"

"Small world," Peridot echoed with a chuckle that had no real humor to it. She realized something a moment after, and her face screwed up with confusion. "Wait- is Greg actually licensed to be a safari driver, then? If he doesn't live here?"

"Actually, yeah." Lapis scratched at her cheek, looking thoughtful. "Last year his old music agent was legally obligated to give him a check of ten million, since he recorded a jingle for a commercial that the agent had sold to a fast food chain."

Peridot was unconvinced. "What does that have to do with being a licensed safari tour guide?"

"He came down and took the thirty-day course with the wares." Lapis sniffed and leaned back, away from Peridot. Then she gave a sardonic little grin with humor in her voice. "You'd think he'd be a little more knowledgeable about surviving in the event of something like this, but, I think the fact that it's Nyumbani-Dunia is throwing him off."

"Why are the- Nyumbani-Dunia such a big deal, anyways?" Peridot deterred, steering the discussion to the most dire matter at hand. "Aside from the fact that they've chased us out of a camp. They're. . . just lions, right?"

She noticed that Lapis had become still, and her shoulders lurched back, as if trying to fold around the scar on her back and conceal it from the world even more. "They are, but they're dangerous. And smart." She gave a nonplussed, humorless chuckle. "Some of the indigenous peoples in the Kalahari say they have a hive-mind, like ants."

"Now I have enough confidence in my field to say that _that,"_ Peridot pointed her index at Lapis accusingly _, "_ is _the_ most ridiculous thing I have ever heard."

"I thought you might say that," finished Lapis, biting knowingly at the tip of her tongue.

Peridot enjoyed this. They were practically two strangers, standing out in the middle of the African savannah, resting in a broken-down, vandalized Jeep just. . . _talking_. It wasn't that Peridot wasn't a sociable type of character- she had friends that she spoke to regularly, but those relations all felt a bit stale. Mundane, if you would.

This felt _palpable._ Even if it was an awkward, delicate kind of palpable, Peridot could feel it in their voices and in the way it made her heart beat faster.

But just like that, the moment was put to an end. Lapis stepped away, her face a deeper colour than before- it almost made Peridot feel smug.

"We'd better head back," Lapis muttered, fingers combing restlessly through her hair. "Before the others wake up and think we've just abandoned them."

Peridot's lips quirked contentedly as the two of them turned away from the Jeep, their arms full of resources to bring back to the brambles.

Then a long, foreboding _creeeak_ of metal stopped them in their tracks.

Now stiffly upright, Peridot stared stolidly ahead, jaws ticked and grinding soundlessly as she tried to find her voice. "Lapis," she whispered uneasily. "Did. . did we check the roof of the Jeep for. . . possible unfriendly faces. . ?"

From the corners of her gaze, Lapis' face was hard with indeterminable thought. "No," she warned in a low, cautious voice. "No, we did not."

". . . What are the chances that a lioness is currently watching us from above at this exact moment?"

". . . Likely."

Neither of them needed to turn around to confirm that assumption, because as soon as the word spilled from Lapis' mouth, a low, guttural vocalization resounded above them.

They didn't wait for a second warning signal to begin high-tailing it back towards the "safety" of the bramble cove, hearts pounding in their throats with the ferocity and adamance of a jackhammer.

"Are we sure that running away from them is the best idea?!" Peridot half-wheezed, half-shouted over to Lapis over the rapid thundering of their feet, not wanting to believe that the there was a third, fourth, or- stars _forbid_ \- fifth set of paws joining in the trampling of the savannah grasses.

"Best one we've got!" Lapis hollered back, arms pumping as she gained a few extra feet on Peridot. This didn't go unnoticed. "H-hey! Wait up! I've got short legs and one is _metal!_ "

Lapis' swift pace faltered at that, but only slightly. "Wake up!" She called out into the night, towards the brambles, arms flailing with alarm. "Nyumbani-Dunia!"

Peridot didn't know _why_ she did, but calling out the pride's name made her feel inclined to shed a panicked look over her achy shoulder. The lioness she saw only a few bounds behind her gave her the stimulus she didn't know she needed. "On our tails!" She wailed, promptly regretting her glance backwards when she felt the weight of her pack tilt forward and then oh stars, she was _falling_ -

There was an onslaught of a few choice expletives, a blur of something shiny, the ripping of nylon fabric, and then Peridot was being whisked off of her feet and into tanned arms. She yelped, clinging for dear life onto Lapis' neck as Lapis stormed on fast feet into the brambles, nearly stumbling over Amethyst who was being shaken awake by a Pearl at her wits' end. "Jasper's coming!" Lapis carped again, as if the distant chorus of confused snarls and frustrated chuffs wasn't indication enough.

Greg, Steven, and Garnet were already up on their feet, the latter staring behind Lapis and Peridot and at the lionesses at the edge of the brambles, who were currently tearing the living daylights out of Peridot's pack. It made Peridot angry in a funny sort of way, to see her things so openly vandalized and destroyed by huge jaws, but- she'd rather the jaws dig into her store of toiletries instead of her _face_.

"What do we do!" Pearl lilted, hands having found her face and gripping heartily at her temples. "They're going to enter the brambles once they're done with Peridot's belongings!"

"Standard procedure says to stay in the same place in the event of- lions attacking, but-" Greg was grabbing uneasily at his hair, pulling it back from the roots as his face flipped between twenty different shades of red and purple. "This isn't a _normal_ pride!"

Honestly, what made Jasper and the rest of Nyumbani-Dunia so different than the standard, meat-headed lion? Peridot found herself frowning despite herself. Sure, they were smart, relatively vicious with what she'd seen at the campfire and presently as they tore open her-

"My documentations!" Peridot gasped, eyes blowing wide with dismay as she watched one of the lionesses tear her vanille folder up and into shreds, flinging bits of pale paper this way and that with what must have been a sense of pride. She fought against Lapis' grip to try to go and salvage all of her things now- her work!- her passport and travel papers!-her study forms!- but her captor was definitely not letting her run off to beat Aquamarine off of her destroyed things. "It's useless, Peridot!" She ordered, her brown eyes turning to find Garnet in the fray. "What do we do, Garnet?"

Garnet, despite how quite literally everyone else was panicking to some degree, stood tolerantly at the heart of the crew, and in the darkness Peridot couldn't tell if she was just idling or actually constructing a plausible means of escape.

She almost cried with relief when Garnet moved and gestured to the direction on the side opposite the lions. "We run for it," the de-facto leader of the crew decided. "Staying here will end in nothing but more misery. We need to put space between ourselves and them. But we need to move, now, while they're distracted."

"Then we'd better get moving, dudes!" Amethyst didn't wait for a second order to begin hiking out of the dense, prickly brush, Steven and Greg held just in tow. "'Cuz they're about to be finished tearing that sack up!" Sure enough, the lionesses had apparently found what they wanted in the form of Peridot's pack of jerky, but one shaggy, maned head was already staring bullets into the brambles. Peridot's heart picked up a few paces and she felt the side of her temple squeeze with stress. "Go!"

Lapis took off after Pearl, who had practically leapt with the urgency of a frightened gazelle over the edge of the bramble barrier, charging after the others who were a few wide paces ahead of them. Peridot didn't want to soil her dignity even further by allowing Lapis to carry her to their next location- not when she seemed to be slowing Lapis' brisk pace down. But she didn't want to chance running on her own leg either! She'd eventually fall behind and she'd be the _first_. She didn't _want_ to be the first!

"Lapis!" She protested. "Lapis, you've gotta put me down- we're lagging behind!"

Lapis looked down at her like she had suggested they stop altogether so the pride could catch them and claw them to bits, and it was then Peridot inconveniently realized how very _close_ their faces were for a second. She couldn't believe the flustered blush that crept up her neck. "No time," Lapis grunted, readjusting Peridot's weight in her arms. "I've lifted _surfboards_ heavier than you."

"Then why are we falling _behind_?!"

"I-" Lapis spared a glance over her shoulder, and Peridot was sorely tempted to do the same thing when she saw Lapis' eyes go wide with alarm. "Garnet! Take Peridot!"

In only a moment Peridot found herself being man-handled over to Garnet's awaiting arms, and she had to admit that- well, as devastating as this was to what little dignity she had left- felt much safer here than anywhere closer to or on the ground. The grip was firmer, more sure- but Peridot definitely wasn't blushing here, despite the close proximity. She reflected on that for a moment before she saw a blur of silver-tinged blue strategically and meticulously darting strictly to the side, away from the rest of the group.

"Wh- what are you doing?!" Peridot shrilled after Lapis as the woman seemed to turn leeward, and to her astonishment, Jasper turned with her, put off by Lapis' sudden shift in direction. The lionesses following her followed suit, skidding in the cracked soil, as the rest of them pounded after Lapis. " _Lapis_!"

" _Go!_ " Lapis hollered back, her trembling voice betraying the cold, taut expression pulling at her eyes. "I'll- I'll find you! Just go, _run!_ "

Peridot would rather have been the first to fall if she'd known that Lapis was next in line.

"But-!"

"She knows what she's doing," she heard Garnet advise from above her, and Peridot couldn't help the surge of outrage that stormed through her tiny frame. "You don't _know_ that! She's got at least _five_ furious lionesses at her heels!" How in the living hell did Garnet think she could just- had she ever even been in a lion attack before? How was she even knowledgeable in the slightest- when Lapis was-

"Peridot."

Oh. She'd been shouting all that aloud.

" _What,_ " she snapped back, eyes stinging with unshed tears. She didn't know if the sensation was because of the dust scattering into her eyes from the dust flying up in everyone's wake, or if they were because of something else entirely. Garnet didn't miss a beat. "Lapis is going to be fine. Trust me."

Peridot wanted to retort about barely even knowing Garnet, but all of her acute deductions had been accurate before, and she was currently carrying Peridot to wherever they were headed next- and she didn't want to risk being dropped because she kept on bickering. So she kept her lips sealed shut, pressed into a firm line as she watched the blue head of hair disappear farther and farther into the distance.

The group kept on swift feet until they grew tired, stopping to receive pause beneath the old, gnarled boughs of a husked pine tree. Peridot's knee was aching from all the bobbing and jostling when she was set down by Garnet, and looked up to see four sets of round, concerned eyes directed at her. "Where's Lapis?" Steven was the first to ask, looking around Peridot and Garnet with a fearful frown that only deepened when there was no sight of his friend. Garnet bent down beside the boy, a warm hand pressing comfortingly down onto his shoulder. "Lapis is going to return, just like she has before."

Steven looked like he wanted to argue back, but Peridot saw him falter, whatever argument that he wanted to make becoming fruitless as his hands wrung fretfully together. Greg went over to console the boy, wrapping an arm around his shoulders in an act of reassurance. "Yeah, bud- Lapis is smart, she'll know what to do. Remember last time?"

Whatever _last time_ had been (but Peridot could assume she was at least slightly knowledgeable after last night), the idea of it didn't seem to console Steven entirely, but he seemed mollified after a few more heartbeats of worry. "Yeah," he uttered at last, rubbing his cheek and crestfallen. "But. . . where'd she go? And. . . where's the Jeep?"

While the darkness that enshrouded them made it exceedingly difficult to make out the details of their environment, it was evident enough that they had run farther than they might have intended to, or even _needed_ to. Peridot shifted her weight uneasily. "Not anywhere visible," she grumbled more-so to herself than to any of her counterparts. She turned, arm directed outwards.

"My guess is it's a long hike back. . err. ." Which direction had they come from? She hadn't exactly mapped the stars or the moon what with all the sprinting she'd been doing in the past six hours. And in the darkness, she couldn't make odds or ends of anything in the nearby area- even the two big acacias they'd camped by were out of sight. Stars, how long had they been running?

A heavyset seed of guilt planted in Peridot's chest for Lapis. She probably had no idea where the rest of them had gone- if she was still even. . . _y'know_. Alive.

When no one seemed to be able to make any accurate depictions of exactly where they'd come from- since it looked like flat, lazy grasses for as far as their tired eyes could see- they decided to give up their chase for the night and lounge. Amethyst and Pearl collapsed against the base of the pine. Steven was talking quietly to his father, their voices too low for Peridot to easily hear. Garnet was standing rigidly by a thick tussock of grasses, arms folded broodily over her chest as she stared out over the grasslands.

Peridot brushed her thumbs together, tapping their fingertips. She shouldn't have gone out to the Jeep. She could have easily stayed leaning against the bark of the ash, completely and blithely unaware of the presence of the beasts haunting the roof of the downed vehicle no more than a quarter-mile away. Did Garnet think similarly of her actions? If she hadn't left, Lapis might still _be_ here, with them. She might still be-

 _No_ , Peridot reprimanded herself. Lapis was still alive. Both Greg and Garnet, now, had regarded Lapis as someone nothing short of a survivalist. Peridot, despite the culpability that gnawed at her insides, felt compelled to believe them. Lapis would persevere, wouldn't she? Even if the probability of surviving an attack of not one, not two, but five keen lionesses was devastatingly slim, or if she tripped and fallen and gotten-

She stopped that train of thought before it could chug any further with a disturbed shudder. There was no going back now that it had already happened. In all that pondering, the others seemed to have stopped fidgeting and chattering, now leaning either against one another or another object to support themselves with. How were they holding up? How was _she_ holding up?

Peridot's mouth pinched. She wasn't dead yet, so that was a definite upside to this. She hadn't been torn into by teeth or claws, either, so another plus. Physically, she seemed alright. Well, her knee was still aching; athleticism had never been her strongest suit. Now, psychologically, she wasn't sure how to frame her present state of mind. She felt awful for, basically, being the cause of all. . . _this_. Guilt weighed at her heart and made her throat swell, but that could've been the thirst. She was tired, frustrated, and just wanted to sit on a cozy mattress somewhere with a semi-functional air conditioning unit.

Lapis' face flashed into her mind, brown eyes glinting as they made a split-second decision before Peridot had been thrust into Garnet's grip and Lapis careened away. Why had she _done_ that? Looking back, she was sure that they would have made it this far without the lionesses catching up. . . but the Nyumbani-Dunia would still have been on their tails, wouldn't they?

 _She made them go after her so they wouldn't go after the rest of us._ The realization sat heavily in the forefront of her mind. _So she gave me to Garnet and._ . .

"Hey, dad?"

Peridot's head shot upwards, the reddish imprint of her palm contoured into her cheek by all her agonizing, looking towards Steven, who was looking up at his dad. "Did you bring any water with you? I. . left my bottle at the brambles."

Greg nodded. "Sure, bud, let me just-" As his hands went down to his pockets, his face grew sullen, and he reached in to pull out nothing but a bit of lint and, weirdly enough, a few paper clips. "Oh. Sorry, kiddo, I think I left mine back there, too."

Steven managed to reign the disappointment that dampened his cheeks. "That's okay," he said in a soft tone of voice. "We'll find a watering hole in the morning, right? Or a spring, or something else that has water!"

Peridot's face scrunched at the thought of ingesting the dirty, gnat-infested waters of the savannah. Not to mention the fact that animals regularly bathed, drank, and did. . . other things within their depths. They didn't have a water purifier on them anymore, either, not when Peridot's things had been torn apart from the inside out earlier. No. Steven's demural wouldn't stand.

"Here." Peridot's arm dug into her pocket, taking out her last canteen of drinking water, and held it out to Steven. She couldn't quite make eye contact while she did it, so she focused on staring at Steven's pink sandals like she was offering his toes the beverage. "I can't guarantee that it's cold but it's better than you accidentally dying of dysentery."

Steven blinked up at her, mouth pulled into a surprised line, before it melded into something a little more affectionate: a smile, even if it was weary around the edges. He accepted the canteen, holding it in two hands and shaking it. Surely enough, there was at least three quarters of the stuff left. "Thank you, Peridot," the boy smiled, beaming up at her. When she nodded at him he took it as permission to drink, and when Peridot had turned away to stare pointedly at a thicket, she instead found Garnet and Pearl, subtly but definitely smiling sideways at her.

"What?" She inquired with a sniff, turning her cheek. "Dysentery is a very serious issue. Clean drinking water is critical for one's health."

She heard Greg chuckle beside Steven as the boy lowered the container, twisting it shut with a happy little hum before speaking. "Yeah, I've heard about it! I was a little addicted with the _Oregon Trail!_ I'd name the characters after all my friends, but someone always died." His face twisted unpleasantly. "Not the best turnout, huh?"

"Nope," Amethyst chimed as she came in beside Steven and sprawled out on her stomach beside him. "But this isn't some video game; no one's gonna die, Steve-o. Especially not with P-dot here, making sure none of us die of dy- dysberry. ."

"Dysentery," Pearl helpfully chimed in as Peridot snorted, climbing in to sit across from Greg beside the smaller mechanic. "A disease in which-"

"I don't think we need the details, but, thanks, Pearl." Greg intervened before Pearl could possibly scare Steven away from any natural source of water for life. The entire group had gathered around in a haphazard circle, all facing one another. It looked like a bunch of high schoolers put into a circle for a game of truth-or-dare, except this version felt much more dangerous. As long as no one starting sucking faces, Peridot was fine with sitting among them, her legs crossed as they settled down.

"Don't worry, you guys," Steven chirped, colour kissing his cheeks as he handed Peridot back her canteen with another mouthed 'thank you'. "We're gonna get outta this! Dispatch said they'd be out at dawn, so- uh, what time is it?"

"Just short of 3:15 AM," Peridot relayed after a glance at her watch.

"So. . . the sun should be up in, like. . . three, four hours?" A nod of confirmation from Garnet spurred Steven on. "So we just- have to wait! Again. For them, and for Lapis."

 _Yeah_ , Peridot reflected with a hint of bitterness. _Just wait_.


	4. Lost

As it turned out, waiting was easier said than done.

Sure enough, the sun did rise only a handful of hours after their last petrifying interaction with Jasper and the rest of Nyumbani-Dunia, but there was no dispatch in sight. There was no Lapis Lazuli in sight either. Amethyst had climbed to the uppermost branches of the pine tree to try to see the edge of the grasses, but she hadn't seen the Jeep nor the trees they'd made their previous campgrounds.

So, they began to walk. They went at a moderate pace as to not exhaust themselves without the appropriate resources to re-energize with. They headed in the direction that Garnet had suggested, and while Peridot was not a believer in blind faith, she had no problem with trekking after the de-facto leader.

The temperature had subtly acclimated with the sun, turning the land a warm shade of gold that rippled across the seas of tawny-coloured grasses. Scraggly bushes studded the terrain, their boughs stretching hungrily outwards for pant cuffs to snag. The sky was a deep, dusty shade of blue, spotted with a few wayward streaks of cloud.

Peridot had resorted to taking off her overshirt, pushing the reminder of a similar top she'd shared with someone else, and wrapping it around her waist. Dust billowed out from beneath the soles of her boots, soil and pebbles crunching with every uneven step. She figured they must be nearer to their original campsite now, even if she couldn't really make out any familiar landmarks on the makeshift trail. If she could even call whatever path they were marching across that.

"Jesus," Amethyst was crowing ahead of Peridot as she grabbed at the fabric of her collar and fluttered it to get some cool air down her neck. "Sun's not even high enough to be annoying yet, can it chill with the heat for a little bit?"

She was met with a clueless noise from Steven. "Dad said it wasn't supposed to get this hot today. Maybe it's just because we got used to the chilliness last night, and now our bodies are. . feeling weird?" He put a hand on his forehead. "I forgot what Connie explained to me that one time when I was confused why hot water felt weird on cold skin."

At least Peridot could explain that. "What's happening right now is just typical temperature adaptation. The phenomenon you're referring to is paradoxical cold," Peridot supplied from the back, thinking herself helpful in the boy's minute befuddlement. Said boy turned to give Peridot a look over his shoulder, before tugging at Amethyst's elbow as they slowed to fall in pace with the more quiet crew member. Peridot didn't try to dissuade them, only crossing her arms over her chest when they grinned at her. "You must know a lot about stuff," Steven noted with admiration, before his smile dampened. "Sorry that you had to be stuck out here with us. I don't think this safari turned out to be the adventure any of us were wishing for."

Amethyst chuffed, amused. "Well, if I ever did get stuck in the middle of lion-infested territory, I'd rather it be with people I know." She gave Peridot a prompting look. "Sucks for you, though- had to be trapped with a much of strangers from the very start."

Peridot could toast to that, but this particular group of quirky characters hadn't fried all of her nerves just yet. Despite their sense of aimlessness, even with Garnet and Greg's fickle sense of know-how, they were still here.

Well, most of them were. "Lapis told me that you all were from Delmarva, in the states," Peridot addressed. "We're closer than you might think. I live at the capitol." That made Steven's eyes twinkle as he nodded, supposedly amazed at their inherent likeness. "That's awesome, Peridot! Kinda a crazy coincidence, too. Do you go to the college there? Is that where you said you were doing the study for?"

Peridot dipped her head affirmatively. "The intention of the trip was to observe how the animals naturally performed in this specific savannah. The heads, however, failed to inform me of the insanity that was Jasper and her crazy pride," she elaborated with a hint of bitterness. "I didn't ask for an up-close and personal experience with them. Let alone seeing what happens when they _attack_." Thinking of the sensation of hot, unpleasant breath billowing in her face made her back thrill with gooseflesh. "But life's not fair, is it?"

"Amen to that," Amethyst barked, slapping Peridot's back gladly, only causing the thinner woman to stumble slightly forward before regaining her balance. "'Specially this trip. . . seems like something's just out to get us."

"That being Nyumbani-Dunia," Peridot clipped distastefully. Recalling the demented predators made her think of Lapis, and that same frosty feeling sank into her chest, the sensation flowing into her limbs and making her receive pause for a moment. Steven stopped with her, bushy brows pressing worriedly together. "You okay?"

"Peachy." Peridot cleared her throat, fixing her glasses, before sticking her hands stubbornly into her pockets. She pretended she didn't see the look shared between Steven and Amethyst over her. "Just wishing Lapis had made it with us."

"Is _that_ why you've been sulky for the past few hours?" Amethyst theorized, a brow perked speculatively, leaning in with a devious sort of smirk. It kind of made Peridot nervous on the inside, but on the outside she made a face of denial. "Don't act like you haven't been trudging along since Lapis took that detour earlier. Plus, Garnet said she'd be fine. You gotta trust her on that."

Again Peridot had to consider the group's ease of belief in Garnet. Sure, she seemed to know what she was doing and what was going to happen, but this was the wilderness we were talking about. It was the ultimate source of spontaneity known to man. You could never know _what_ was going to happen when you were all alone out in the middle of the savannah. "Why do you two give her so much credit?" She decided to ask.

"Who, G?" Amethyst's eyes squinted thoughtfully. "No idea. It's always just come as, uh. . . second nature, I guess? Always has a cool head, even if we're, say, trapped in the middle of a desert with no food or drink, or even a vague sense of direction?"

Steven laughed drily. It sounded less gleeful and more jumpy now. "You say it like we're doomed! But, Peridot, Lapis will be okay, I'm sure of it. She's really capable, I know she is."

Peridot scowled at the ground. She was capable, she was sure, too. After all, she'd survived a Jasper attack before, and Steven knew she had too- even if she didn't specify Jasper exactly. But she didn't remember if she'd been attacked by just one lioness or five. Still, neither option made Peridot think any more optimistically. Amethyst must have deduced something from Peridot's brooding silence, a devilishly knowing smirk striking her features. "What, do you _like_ her or something?"

Now that made Peridot shoot ramrod straight, teeth clipping the edge of her tongue as she hissed with mortification. "Wh-what? _No_! What made you get _that_ idea?"

Steven's smile curled up to his ears as he leaned in, dark eyes just sparkling with the spirit of playful inquiry as he leaned on Peridot's shoulder. "Oooh, is Amethyst right? Do you like her, Peridot?" When Peridot's brows shot even higher, he continued with a giggle. "Oh my gosh! That's so cute!"

Peridot's arm whipped out and slapped Steven lightly on the shoulder, earning a lighthearted, guiltless laugh from the boy. "Ow, haha! Why'd you hit me!"

"Because you called me _cute!_ "

Amethyst snaked in beside her again, the same devious look dancing in her face as she gave a willful chuckle. "Would it make you feel any better if it was _Lapis_ calling you cute?"

The _gall_ of these two! And the fact that Peridot had even considered Amethyst's last remark for a moment made Peridot attribute a shard of truthfulness to the words and now she was imagining and oh _stars_. Peridot stammered to deny the clause as soon as that curious thought passed, hands shooting up and hiding spastically in her knotty blonde hair, fingers hastily reaching for a hat she knew full well wasn't there to hide her face.

"Aww, Amethyst, look, she's all blushy!"

Peridot coloured further, sticking her tongue childishly at Steven before slamming to a stop behind Pearl before she ran head-first into her back. Before she could scold her for stopping so abruptly, though, she heard a wonder-filled gasp from Steven and an equally awed 'whoa' from Amethyst.

She was relieved to be freed of their doting but the sudden stillness in the party made her inquisitive. "What?" Peridot padded out from behind Pearl, who was staring past where Greg was silently motioning for the others to look. Oh stars, it wasn't more lions, was it? No, it couldn't be; Steven and Amethyst wouldn't have sounded so wonderstruck. She followed Greg's gesturing hand, then stopped and gaped like a fish out of water.

Ahead of them there was a single acacia tree, its ancient branches hovering high off the ground. But that wasn't what drew their attention. Out from behind the expanse of shrubby leaves came an enormous, spindly, long-limbed creature, golden with deep brown spots.

"A giraffe!" She heard Steven hiss excitedly through his teeth, rushing past her and Pearl to get a closer look. Greg was able to stop him with an amused but cautious laugh, a hand extending in front of Steven's chest and effectively stopping him before he could run underneath the animal's towering legs. "Hold on there a sec, Steven- it's not exactly, uh, _safe_ to go running underneath some wild animal's legs, you know?"

"But dad, look at her!" Steven gesticulated wildly at the regal giraffe. "She's not doing anything bad! She's just eating her leaves like a _good_ giraffe."

Pearl twittered at Steven's side, seeming to concur with Greg about maintaining caution around these creatures. "Your father's right, Steven. Even a. . good giraffe could turn into a dangerous one very quickly."

Peridot's eyes went to Amethyst, who was blowing raspberries in a dismissive kind of way, pushing past Pearl's other side and turning around so she was walking backwards towards the giraffe. "Stop being such buzzkills, you _guys_. If we're gonna be stuck out here in the middle of _nowheresville_ for the next few hours, let's make the best of it!"

"It's actually the Kalahari-" Pearl pursed her lips discontentedly when Amethyst raised a brow at her, as if to prove her point. "Point taken, but, won't you be careful?"

"Always careful," Amethyst grinned a wily grin, tugging Steven along, up to the giraffe. Peridot ambled in beside Greg, her dubious expression matching that of his. "Is this really a logical thing to be doing? What if one of them gets hurt? None of us have any first aid resources aside from routine CPR training, I want to say." If push came down to shove, Peridot _supposed_ she could rip strips of fabric off of their garments, but, that wouldn't help if a wound became infected. It would just stop blood.

Plus she _really_ didn't wanna see someone's forehead get stomped in by a wayward giraffe hoof today.

Her teeth found her lower lip as she worried lightly at the flesh there as Steven and Amethyst darted up to the giraffe, the former calling up to it expectantly. Surely he didn't think that the- of course the giraffe was now looking down at them like it understood the cadence of human language.

"Hey girl!" Steven waved softly up at the massive animal, beckoning it down (or, its head down, actually, since it was very much on the ground) with an exhilarated hum. "Or boy, it doesn't matter to me! C'mere!"

Peridot didn't think that the big, spotted herbivore would actively respond to Steven, let alone understand what he was saying. But again, despite all the biological and behavioral studies Peridot had been familiarized with for the past two semesters, the giraffe was actually seeming to emote as its tapering head dipped low to the ground, hovering just a few inches above Steven's curly hair. Incredulous, she shared a look with the other safari crew members. She saw her own bafflement mirrored in Pearl's eyes, before they both switched their eyes back to the scene in front of them.

Steven was now reaching up, pale, chubby fingers seeking out something to graze. "C'mon! I won't bite! And, uh, I hope you won't either." His eyes went quickly to the ground, as if he'd just realized something critical, and crouched to grab a handful of dried acacia leaves. "You like leaves, right? Here!"

Greg looked like he wanted to say something, but instead of doing so, he actually began to walk slowly over to his son. A hand clasped over Steven's shoulder as Greg marvelled at the giraffe's docile nature. "Normally I'd be discouraging feeding any of the animals on the reserve, but. ." Steven's deep brown puppy-dog eyes ended up winning over the father over. "I think can make an exception, just this once."

Amethyst joined the father-son duo next, having grown tired of just gawking at the animal's huge, spindly limbs (Peridot swore she heard Amethyst retort something about Pearl and ballerinas, but she wasn't certain) and decided to return to the others. "This thing is almost as tall as that tree! D'ya think it'll let us pet it?"

"They want to pet it?" Peridot winced, and a second later Pearl was off, hand stressfully holding down her touristy pith helmet with a hand as the other found Steven's handless shoulder. "Do you think that's a good idea, Steven?"

"Positive!" He beamed, wholly unaffected by the worry lines creasing Pearl's forehead. That, or he was incredibly naive to her strain. "C'mon, Miss Giraffe! I've got some leaves for you!" He waved his fistful of leaves again, persuading. "Tasty, tasty leaves. ."

"It won't want to eat them out of your palms, Steven," Pearl sighed, gently coaxing the acacia leaves from the boy's fingers, before all at once, hell broke loose.

A multitude of things happened. Amethyst seemed to be laughing hysterically, Steven gaping for a moment before joining in. Greg was staring with a dopey sort of grin painting his cheeks, sharing a quick, amused glance with Garnet as Pearl. . . screamed, for lack of a better term, as the giraffe's blue tongue slipped out and stole the leaves from Pearl's loose fingers. Said fingers clenched together as soon as her friendly assailant had risen its head again, chewing contentedly on the plants as Pearl hid her hand away with some very curious, very birdlike squabbles.

"Oh my _god_ , P," Amethyst was gasping, a hand on her forehead and the other trying to still her quaking heart. "Your face when that thing's tongue-"

"I don't need a reminder!" Pearl clipped in before Amethyst could finish. She made an unpleasant, quivering tremor of a noise, bringing her hand out from the safety of her armpit and staring at it like she'd grown an extra thumb. "I can still _feel_ it."

Steven laughed, bouncing up and grabbing Pearl's hand in his. "Is it sti- eww, _haha!"_ He drew back his hand, a thin film of saliva streaking across his palm. "Yeah, it's a little sticky!"

Peridot had found herself approaching the group with Garnet coming in just behind her. Up close she swore she could feel the strength in the lean legs of the giraffe; while it put on an amenable front, Peridot wasn't about to just let her guard down. . . not when a two-ton Southern giraffe's hooves were only mere feet away from her.

A two-ton giraffe which was now returning for round two, nostrils flaring inquisitively at a flabbergasted Pearl and billowing hot air through them when she had nothing of interest for it to chew on. It turned its head to the next best thing, that being Steven, hands full of little twigs and sleek, brittle leaves. The entire group seemed to hold its collective breath in the giraffe's placid moment of pondering, before its head moved and it stole the leaves from the boy's hands. Steven giggled, hands moving like they wanted to retract, but when the huge head remained close to him, he reached up, delicately, to reach for its short, wiry fur.

Peridot felt alarm for him, since he seemed to harbor none of his own. She marched forward to stop him before he did something he'd regret- like lose a finger to those flat, munching teeth- but was grounded, dumbfounded, as the giraffe allowed the boy to gently caress the size of its broad yellow cheek.

"That's a nice girl," came Garnet's voice, and Peridot made way as the large woman moved past and rested her open palm appeasingly over the curve of the giraffe's muzzle. Oddly enough, the animal seemed to lean fractionally in to the touch. Amethyst was quick to join in, beckoning for Steven as she ran a darker hand through the thin dappled fur. "This is _sick._ "

Despite all of the alarm bells that were still chorusing at the back of Peridot's mind, she couldn't help but feel drawn to join the others. Her feet realized where she was headed before she did, and she was soon hovering next to Steven, staring up the careful muzzle of this great beast. "Um," she whispered tensely to him, voice the opposite of confident. "What should I do to garner its attention?"

"Just. . say hello!" Steven chirped. When Peridot didn't look convinced, he tacked a "she's friendly!" on for good measure.

 _Say hello,_ Peridot echoed in her mind, feeling every bit as cynical as she had when Steven had been trying to obtain the giraffe's attention before. She cleared her throat, the beginnings of a grumble resonating at the back of her mouth.

Apparently, that was all the giraffe needed to focus its beady eyes onto her. Peridot stiffened under its heavy, peaceable gaze. Was it regarding her? No, that's impossible- those dark brown eyes were thoughtless. Thoughtless, and nothing more! But if that was the case, why did it look so _thoughtful?_

In a brilliant moment of word association in the face of this elegant creature, Peridot managed to sputter one audible thing.

" _Erm_."

And then it licked her, right in the face, with its long blue tongue.

Peridot shrieked, stumbling backwards and tripping into Greg who caught her before she could collapse into the dirt. Her hands flew up to her face to rip off her glasses, wiping her nose vigorously with the sleeve of her shirt to get the _saliva_ off of her _face_ because it was _everywhere_. Even her glasses were slimy with the stuff!

She could vaguely hear Amethyst's roaring laughter as she bent over her knees, lavender hair flying everywhere as she heaved. Steven was looking at her with concern, but she could see the hilarity in his gaze and in the way he was biting down on his lip to prevent from giggling. "You okay, Peri?"

" _Eugh_. . . that's debatable," Peridot grumbled as she let herself sink into Greg's arms for an unguarded moment before flopping onto her behind, clenching her overshirt's fabric and rubbing it against the clouded, gooey lenses of her lime wireframes. "That was _disgusting_."

Steven shrugged, cheeky. "Maybe, but, it was kinda funny!"

Peridot raised a brow at Steven with no real venom behind it, blinking upwards when Garnet fell in beside the boy with a small smile on her lips. "Eh, it was a little funny."

" _Yeuck_." Peridot swiped some free fingers over the smear of giraffe slobber on her cheek, flicking it disdainfully onto the ground by her boots. She reached back up to get the last dribbles off before freezing, and slowly, began to thread her fingers through her tangled, _damp_ hair. She deflated. "It's in my hair, isn't it?"

"Unfortunately," Garnet mused.

Greg helped Peridot up once she'd finished swatting her face free of spittle, dusting off her khaki shorts with a mix between a sniff and a grumble. When she looked up again Steven was waving off the giraffe who had apparently lost interest after putting its tongue on Peridot's face.

Just wait until her colleagues back at the department heard about _this_! They'd be macking and howling about it for months, the clods! . . . That is, uh, if she ever saw them again, but she decided she mustn't think so ill of the situation. She'd definitely make it back to Delmarva, hopefully still in one piece.

Or many small bloody ones.

 _Anyways. . ._ Peridot removed that unpleasant sentiment from mind, testing the clarity of her glasses before huffing with resignation. "Let's just hope it doesn't decide it wants seconds."

Steven put his hand up to his lips to conceal a blatant smile, sparkling eyes moving from Peridot to Pearl. "At least it didn't lick you again!"

Pearl's face was written over with relief as she nodded frivolously, obviously very much agreeing with him. Greg was the one to speak next, face wrought with something more thoughtful than humor. "Speaking of seconds. . I don't know about y'all, but," he patted his stomach absently, "your old man's kinda getting hungry. Too bad we had to leave all of our things back at the fire."

Ugh, _food_. Peridot had been doing well enough in keeping the idea of nutritional substances out of mind, but now that it had been openly brought up, the gnawing in her abdomen seemed to grow more prominent. Above her, Pearl and Garnet were acknowledging Greg's concern and having a quick interplay.

"There has to be some edible form of crop for us to find here," Pearl argued, eyeing a prickly, dark-toned bush that flanked the group at the foot of the acacia. "The animals feed, so naturally we must be able to, as well."

"Our systems aren't quite as adaptive to this sort of environment, however," Peridot spoke up, having been watching Pearl ogle the yew bush. "They can tolerate things we can't. And that bush is a yew; those berries are poisonous."

Amethyst, who had been gathering the little red berries in her hand, glanced down at them with that, and slowly let them clatter earthward with disappointment. "Figures."

"We won't have to, uh-" Steven piped up, wringing his hands awkwardly together as big brown eyes swept over Peridot. "Hunt, will we? I mean- I've gone fishing before, but, I've never-"

"We won't need to come to that. It's discouraged in the reserve, anyways," Garnet spoke up. "Say," she added after a brief pause, sending Peridot a look behind her dark shades. Or, she _thought_ Garnet had. "Do you suppose you could direct us towards an area where there might be something of value?" She then looked over to the yew. "Preferably something edible."

Could she? Peridot mulled over Garnet's request before giving a proud nod. "Certainly," she boasted, pushing past the others and ignoring the odd sensation of sticky hair clinging to her stickier forehead. "Follow me. There ought to be something in that copse there, past those bushes." There had to be; little deciduous areas such as that were popular grazing grounds for herbivores of all fares.

The group moved across the flat, grassy soils, maneuvering through the clods of shrubby thickets and stopping at the edge of the tangled grove. Six great acacia trees sat clumped together, their trunks reaching high into the cloud-speckled sky, a great barrier of stunted shrubbery lining the areas positioned between them. Peridot's eyes scrutinized the arid vegetation. The chances of finding something edible were slim, and the chance that it would be even remotely tasty was even slimmer. But she had to chance it still, lest she and the others want to trudge through the coming afternoon with empty stomachs and growing tempers.

She had stepped over a matted clump of dried grass mulch when her eyes caught something bright and shimmering within the leafy confines of a shrub. She did a studious double-take, teeth clipping her tongue thoughtfully as she scrambled over. Tucked into the rough leaves of a mallow-like, flowering bush were golden, bulbous fruits, ones Peridot vaguely recognized as the indigenous African Sandpaper Raisins. "A _grewia_ ," she mumbled to herself as her fingers gently pinched the soft fruits, and found them to be just past ripe. It was better than nothing.

"Here," Peridot grunted, climbing back onto her feet with a handful of fruits she'd picked out. "These are Sandpaper Raisins, the fruits from this shrub. T3hey're safe." She handed one to Steven, then the next to Amethyst and then Garnet. When the staidly woman eyed the fruit then took an experimental bite. Peridot didn't know she was holding her breath until Garnet gave her a thumbs-up and took another bite. Peridot couldn't help but feel a surge of pride. She'd helped out in some way now!

She and Greg went in to harvest some more of the slightly overripened fruits, placing any extras in a pile beside the shrub as the group ate. The taste wasn't spectacular, no, but beggars couldn't be choosers- not when Peridot had only eaten a quarter of her trail mix bag over some twelve hours ago. Now that she thought about it, what time _was_ it?

She swiped a bit of the raisin-like fruit's moisture from the side of her lip with a thumb while her eyes travelled down to her wrist. The digital watch face read 12:03 PM.

"It's noon," Peridot noted aloud, drawing the eyes of her companions, lips pursing with discontent. "Over fourteen hours since losing our Jeep, now roughly ten hours since losing Lapis."

That last remark certainly seemed to put a damper on things. She saw Amethyst and Pearl exchange a glance through the corner of her gaze and pretended she hadn't seen for her own sake. She was only stating the dire facts.

"If only I still had a working radio," Greg lamented, shifting in the soil beside Peridot and bringing out a cracked walkie-talkie from his shorts pocket. Peridot raised a brow. "I didn't know you'd broken it."

"It was an accident, honest," the older man explained, tapping the inactive machine with a grimace. "It must have broken when I fell in the brambles after Nyumbani-Dunia attacked the second time. I only noticed it was broken when I tried to call in for recovery dispatch this morning."

"Let me see it." Peridot requested, and Greg handed her the damaged device. The casing had been cracked off, revealing the green circuit board underneath. She was pleased to see it was mostly undamaged, but as she peered closer she could see two ports that had been crunched into themselves. She groaned. "I don't have the right tools to properly bounce the circuits back up without damaging them even more."

Again she mourned for her backpack, which conveniently had a small multitool tucked into one of its many pockets. In hindsight, she probably should have stored that in her pocket like she had her water back at the Jeep with Lapis. It would have been better than lugging it with the rest of her things. By the looks on the others' faces, none of them had any tools to use, either. Amethyst had a few bobby pins that she offered, but Peridot knew better than to try to scratch up the circuits more than they already were.

Nevertheless, she put the walkie in her pocket. She could fiddle with it later when they stopped to rest again, whenever that may be. Her gaze went around their little misshapen circle. She glanced up to see Amethyst trying and kind of succeeding in juggling the yellow fruits, sending a wink Pearl's way with a mellow cackle. Pearl only sighed with a tired smile, elbows resting on her knees as her eyes moved over to Steven. He seemed intrigued by the fruits still, having snapped one open to get a better look at them now that he wasn't wolfing them down. Garnet was sitting cross-legged next to him, pointing something out to the boy that he giggled at. Finally it traveled to Greg next to her, and despite everything, Peridot felt a sense of safety among them. She didn't know why. She barely knew them, right?

"Y'know, Steven," Greg spoke up before Peridot had time to reflect on that. "It's at a time like this you'd bring out that good ol' ukulele of yours."

Steven could play the ukulele? Peridot had never been partial to any instruments herself, save for a triangle she often got paired up with during music class in secondary school. The boy in question was now looking thoughtful, setting down the fruit he'd been fondling. "I wish I had it with me. I think I left it in the Jeep, though, in my backpack. I think it's in the cheese."

". . In the cheese?" Peridot questioned.

"Oh! I have the limited edition cheeseburger backpack from Wacky Sacks!" Steven's face was alive with excitement now as he explained what he meant. "Every ingredient in a cheeseburger is a layer in the backpack! Like, there's a bun, the meat, the cheese, the lettu-"

"I understand fine now," Peridot stopped him before he could splurge any further. She didn't know why one side of her lips were quirked with endearment.

Garnet spoke up next, shifting in the soil and turning her shades out to the rest of the group. "I have an idea. Why don't we make the most of this little break?" Peridot paled when Garnet tilted her head at her, the curve to her mouth every bit knowing. "I take it some of us are feeling a little. . . baffled."

"If you say so," Amethyst yawned, taking a bite of one of her former juggling balls. "I'm feeling just fine." She began nudging Pearl, a coaxing smirk written all over her features. "How about it? Maybe a game of Paranoia? 'Truth or Dare'? 'Never Have I Ever'?"

"Oh, don't be silly," was Pearl's response as she shrugged Amethyst off, smiling. "In this house we play Twenty Questions."

Steven looked up, face glowing with anticipation. "Oh! Isn't that the one where you ask each other a bunch of questions about each other? That'd be fun!"

"Actually it's an old parlor game," Pearl corrected. "One where one person needs to think of a certain object and the others get twenty questions to ask what it is." She must have seen Steven's expression falter, because she rolled her shoulders and leaned over to ruffle the boy's hair. "But we can play your version instead."

"Woo-hoo! Can I go first?" When there were no objection to Steven's request, the boy got comfortable, hands placed keenly over his eyes as his eyes shone with enticement. "Okay! Hmm. . . okay, Peridot first!"

Peridot livened, eyes roaming up from the ground as she was called upon. She didn't want to divulge more than she absolutely had to, but, there was no real danger in revealing any sort of personal details right now. "Err, alright. What's your question?"

"What's your favourite kind of music?" The boy asked. "Like, rock or jazz, or. . you know! The other kinds!"

Peridot bit lightly into the flesh of her cheek. She did admit to having some specific affinities for different types of musics, and loathe as she was to admit it. . . "I have a certain affinity for. . _country music_ whenever I'm upset," she offered, ignoring Amethyst's amused grin and Greg's little chuckle. "But on a normal day, spacey DnB music."

The rest of the group nodded, like that bit of information made sense. Peridot fidgeted until Steven called on her to ask someone else a question about them. She _hrm_ 'd, narrowed eyes studying the others before deciding on her receiving candidate. "Pearl," she began, "what do you. . . _do_ , besides this? You mentioned you had a degree in mechanics."

Pearl looked pleasantly surprised that she'd been picked next, practically preening as a hand swept through her sweaty pink locks of hair. "Well, currently I balance between being a ballet instructor and a fencing coach in Beach City, where all of us come from. My major was mechanics and rocket science, yes, but with a minor in the arts. I can fix things if they happen to come my way."

Peridot rubbed her chin, analytical, and gave a contented noise. She could appreciate another artist, even if she would never lower herself to create things like performance pieces. Pearl called upon Greg next, asking something about someone by the name of Rose. Greg flushed in response, hand flying up to itch nervously at the back of his neck. "Well of course I miss her," he uttered quietly. "Every day I do. It never got easier, but, I just got used to it. I think."

Peridot suddenly wished she'd been paying closer attention to what Pearl had asked, but based on the context in the crestfallen faces of everyone around, she could assume that Rose must have been someone important to all of them. She probably shouldn't pander where she didn't belong, so she kept her mouth shut, and her curiosity in check.

"All right, Amethyst, you're up," Greg proclaimed next, throwing the spotlight onto the lavender-haired group member. "What would you say is the best season of _Little Butler_? Answer wisely."

"Dude, come on," Amethyst groaned, hiding her face behind her hands in frustration. "You can't just make me _choose_. Ugh, _fine_ , it's gotta be season two."

Greg seemed satisfied by the answer, letting out a mirthful laugh and crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Called it! Who're you gonna ask next?"

Amethyst's gaze swept over the others with the craftiness of a languid panther, before setting onto one of them. "Garnet. What's the _hardest_ part about being a firefighter? Is it the heat? When everything's all on fire and stuff?"

"Hmm." Garnet adjusted her shades, astute, as she considered the answer. Meanwhile, Peridot was eyeing the woman with evident interest. She didn't know she was a firefighter; in fact, she knew the least about Garnet than any other member of the group. So she kept attentive when Garnet answered a few heartbeats later. "The hardest part is when we see others trapped inside the buildings. In the flames. We work to get them out, of course, but there is always the chance that fate has another plan."

 _Oh_. Peridot suddenly felt as though she were treading on thin ground, lips pursed inward as Amethyst let out a quiet ' _yikes_ ' somewhere near her. Garnet was unphased though, instead turning to Steven with a fond smile. "Now it's your turn again, Steven. Tell me, what are you most looking forward to? It can be anything and everything."

"Well. ." Steven's face contorted as he pondered the question, almost looking troubled. "I'm excited to see Connie again! I remember she was a little sad she couldn't come with us because of all the projects she has to do for school, so. . . and I'm ready to find Lapis and get out of here."

Ah, there it was. That minute thorn of grief that Peridot had become accustomed to, wedged into the side of her heart, returned with a renewed vigor. She swallowed the dry air, reaching up to scratch awkwardly at her cheek. The others seemed to sense the boy's discomfort, too.

"You'll see both of them again soon enough," Garnet soothed, placing her strong hand on Steven's back comfortingly. She lifted up her shades and winked at Steven, and for the first time, Peridot noticed the heterochromia in her eyes: one brown, and one blue. "Trust me."

Whatever dubiety Steven held melted away under her touch, and he gave a little laugh and hugged onto Garnet's arm. "Always."

It was quiet, then, as the group began to discard the remains of the fruits. No one was starving anymore, and their thirsts had been minorly quenched by the juices- but Peridot knew it would return soon enough. It would only stave them off until later, when it got darker and more risky to be out in the open.

"I propose we keep moving," she ended up suggesting, climbing up and swatting herself down. "I can't imagine the dispatch team will find us at this rate, so we'd better keep trying to find them."

 _And Lapis_ , she added mentally, but didn't want to risk another round of teasing from a playful Steven and coy Amethyst. She wasn't too happy to need to be out of the shade, having grown used to its coolness, but she would rather know she was being productive and actively seeking help with the others than growing lethargic under an acacia tree.

 _Hold on_ , she prompted to the empty, cloud-smattered skies above as the group began to march across the savannah. A few more hours, and the sky itself would be as dark and blue as Lapis' hair. _We're coming_.


	5. Rendezvous, Respite, and Run

A few long, oppressive hours had trudged by, and there was still no sign of the dispatch squad or of Lapis Lazuli. Peridot was beginning to lose hope that she'd ever see modern-day civilization or a fringe of blue hair ever again.

Her leg began to hurt sooner than later, the nettlesome pain making Peridot regret not trying at least a little _harder_ in physical therapy to adapt her physique to these athletic conditions. The only ones who seemed to be just fine with pressing forward in the seething atmosphere were Pearl and Garnet, while the others lagged precariously behind, trudging with every footstep.

The group did eventually stop, resting beneath the shuddering shade of a small embittered pine tree, with only just enough shade for all of them to squeeze together underneath. The heat wasn't quite unbearable anymore, as the cloudless noon had bled into a slightly clouded afternoon. Peridot's body must have shifted gears, recognizing her need to be able to survive and not necessarily thrive. She was by no means comfortable, but, she wasn't dying anymore, so that was a plus.

Peridot's fingers kneaded the irritated skin on her amputated limb. The heat was doing her no favors in that department, unfortunately, and unless anyone here had an ice pack tucked into their pockets she supposed she'd just have to bear this cross. "Stupid savannah," she grumbled. "Stupid pride, tearing up my things. Making my life that much more difficult."

"Are you talking to yourself again, Per?" Amethyst leaned up onto her elbows from her position on the floor, rubbing her eye with the back of her palm.

". . . No," Peridot said after a moment's hesitation, restively clasping her hands over her bad knee with a frown. A second later her chin followed, instead resting on the tops of her fingers. "Yes."

Amethyst smirked, letting her arms fall free once more as she caught her hand in her palms before it smacked into the solid ground. "Life's a real sucker sometimes," she asserted, eyelids lazily cast at half-mast as she looked at the sky above them through the patchy grey needles. "At least it's not completely hopeless. If it comes to that point, we can always eat each other."

Peridot stammered, a trickle of dread thrilling her veins like ice as Amethyst broke out into a raucous laugh. "Oh my god, I'm just messing with you! _Hah!_ Nah, we'll just- _hooh_." She wiped a mock tear from the corner of her eye. "We'll just have you magically find some more fruit shrubs."

Peridot eventually came back down to earth, smoothing out the knots in her arms and legs that had bunched her up against the tree trunk. Amethyst was certainly an acquired taste. "It wasn't magical, it was just knowing what to look for and its properties," she rectified, because magic didn't exist. Then she narrowed her eyes and tilted her head, a little owlishly. "How are you so at peace with all of this? We're being stalked by hungry lions and we've lost someone."

Amethyst blew a thick strand of velvet hair from her face, grunting when it promptly flopped back into place in front of her eyes. "Dunno. Just kinda. . . chilled out, I guess. Maybe it's 'cuz I think it's sorta _cool_ to be stuck out here. No restraints, no rules-"

"There are the game reserve rules?"

Amethyst guffawed. "Not when we're not technically on our tour anymore, there's not! Point is, I'm taking it in stride. No need to make this whole situation worse than it really is, y'know?"

Peridot nodded her assent even though she couldn't quite align herself with Amethyst's nonchalant mentality. Too many parts of her wanted to find the root issue of all this and remedy it; but this was some abstract concept of predator and prey- not a machine to be fixed or an art piece to be modified.

The group decided to begin walking again after a while more, only feeling slightly refreshed for their respite in the shade. The afternoon deepened, the sky condensing in hue as they traversed. They must have covered some distance, because Pearl was the one to point out the watering hole in the distance, shielded by a prominent bluff of grass and soil. They diverted in that direction, almost at the edge of the waters before Garnet rose her hand, gesturing for the party to stop.

"I hear something," was her simple explanation, supposedly scanning the muddy hollow. In their silence, above the gentle whispering of the browned water, they could hear something that bellowed at the edges of their senses. Peridot's heart surged to the back of her mouth as she hugged herself, straining again to check that it wasn't a lion's roar she had just heard.

The sound brayed again, but this time, Peridot recognized it not as a lion's roar but as the powerful trumpeting of an elephant. She immediately stood to attention, searching the horizon for any sign of the large creatures. At first she couldn't see a thing, but when she studied what she thought had been a group of wrinkled trees pushed together, she noticed that they were actually growing _bigger_.

Greg beat her to publicly acknowledging them, letting out an awed laugh and signalling towards the herd of elephants. "Take a look, y'all. There's a herd of South African elephants that looks like they're about to cross paths with us up further."

Certainly enough, as the elephants grew less blurred by distance and more clear in closeness, Peridot could make out some more discerning details. At the front of the herd there was an ancient male elephant, with tusks long enough to spear through any tree with enough force. There had to be at least ten elephants, from what she could see. Maybe even more, but she wasn't about to go over there to be stomped to death!

The group allowed themselves to marvel at the huge creatures as they moved unhurriedly past. They must have been especially lucky; they had the means and the know-how as to how to survive without trifle out here. They still had to face predators, but they had more strength and more of a fighting chance than five weaponless humans. A weird envy filled Peridot as the herd moved past them.

"Wowza," Amethyst whistled when the elephant at the front of the herd rose its trunk to give a small commanding roar, which beckoned for the other elephants to turn and follow it in a slightly different direction. "They're a lot bigger than I thought they'd be."

Pearl turned to regard her flatly. "Is that all you have to say for the marvel we've just witnessed?"

Amethyst pondered for a minute. "Yup. That's it."

Garnet chuckled and put her hand over Amethyst's shoulder. "That's the spirit. But that herd changed directions for a reason. I think we'd best follow suit and head away from what they're turning away from."

There was a general consensus throughout the group as they deflected slightly, beginning to move fluidly through the grasses. Peridot was making her way through a tangle of feathery ryegrass when she noticed Steven was still hovering in the same spot, watching the elephant herd proceed further and further away. She paused and looked back at the boy with a lifted brow. "Well? Aren't you coming?"

"Didn't you say that most of the waters here would be bad to drink?" Steven asked airily, his tone sounded muddled and a little hopeful, to Peridot's bewilderment. "Doesn't that mean that they'd be like, brown, or green? Not blue?"

"That would be what I said, yes," she supplied, not getting where Steven was headed when he pointed servicably at the departing group of elephants. "Then why is there something blue over there?"

Pearl, who was at the head of the party, twirled around, pale eyes shining with enticement. "Ooh- is it another roller? A shame I don't have my camera anymore. ."

Peridot squinted and followed Steven's gesture. Indeed, there was something remarkably blue in the distance, and it seemed to be. . clinging to the back of an elephant. A little elephant she hadn't seen before, by the way it only came up to a grown elephant's knees. It wasn't uncommon for some birds to ride elephants, but- none could be quite so boldly coloured, would they? It made them too easy to spot in the beige of the grasslands- adaptation would have started to- wait a second. Was the blue thing waving at them?

" _Lapis_!" Steven's joyous outcry made the entire group stop, eyes returning to the herd of elephants with a now unrestrained curiosity. Peridot could feel her heartbeat pulsing at the back of her mouth as the boy broke out into an ecstatic run, followed quickly by a fretful father and equally fretful Pearl. Hurriedly, she shared a look with Amethyst, ignoring the knowing simper on her fellow crew member's face before she got a hearty pat on the back and a, "go get 'er, tiger."

Soon Peridot was haring after the others, eventually getting tired and needing to pause for a moment, before finishing the race to the herd and watching in amazement as Lapis Lazuli smiled down at them from the back of a freaking baby _elephant_. She looked a little worse for wear, but from what Peridot could tell, she was for the most part uninjured. Granted, she had bloodied scrapes and scuff marks all over her legs and forearms, but, stars _almighty_ , she was _alive_!

Just the familiar sight of electric blue in the neutrality of the savannah was enough to assuage the coolness in Peridot's chest, a sensation that warped and pulsed within her as she watched Lapis try to dismount the back of the young elephant. Now that she was able to look past the initial adrenaline rush of seeing that Lapis was very much alive, she had time to consider how in the hell she had gotten on the back of an _elephant._ A _baby_ elephant.

Lapis slid down the side of the creature, hovering a few inches above the coarse ground before she jumped down. Peridot's lungs jerked when she saw her leg quiver beneath her weight, body tugging awkwardly to one side before she regained her footing. Steven was on her in an instant, short arms wrapped distraughtly around her waist as the herd began to take their leave. "Oh my gosh, _Lapis!_ Are you okay? Are you hurt? Are you- did I ask if you were okay yet because oh my _gosh_!"

"I'm okay," Lapis consoled, hugging Steven with delicate, tired arms. Then she began to look uncomfortable. "Just- a little tired. Or maybe a lot tired."

"Dude," Amethyst piped up, gaping at Lapis like she'd sprouted a second head. "Join the tired party. Hell, you could probably lead it!"

" _Language_ , Amethyst!" Peridot didn't even need to look to know who exclaimed _that_.

"Yeah, yeah- but _seriously_!" Amethyst jumped in beside Lapis, dark eyes huge with unchecked incredulity. "Not a single bite on ya! Not even a little _nibble_ \- how did you pull _that_ off?"

"You're not hurt anywhere, are you? Or infected with anything. . unpleasant?" Pearl twittered from the back, keeping behind Garnet like Lapis was a whole new being to be feared. "Because that would be unfortunate, it would, but-"

"Lapis," Garnet coaxed, her quiet but immense voice gaining the attention of every flustering crew member- even Peridot, whose eyes hadn't left Lapis as she simultaneously tried to dig her voice out of whatever concave of muscle it was hidden in. "Are you hurt? You stumbled just a moment ago."

The receiver looked up uncertainly, swallowing as she straightened, flexing her left leg and giving a tiny grimace. "I. . think I strained a muscle, running from the lionesses. But. . otherwise, I think I'm okay."

Hearing that the fumble she'd seen Lapis take was nothing but a strain of the calf relieved Peridot, and she hated that it relieved her because she had still hurt herself. Garnet regarded her a moment, before Greg stepped in for his turn to interrogate. "How on earth did you get away from the lionesses?" Greg implored, voice raw with disbelief and a restrained sense of solace. "Nyumbani-Dunia are a very determined pride!"

Lapis smiled tiredly, but it didn't reach her wearier eyes. "Do you think I'd forget this?" She cajoled, a dirty hand shoveling into her pocket and unearthing a navy-coloured pocket knife.

Steven's watery eyes stretched marginally wider as he took a mindful step away from the sharp utensil. ". . Did you have to use it?"

"No." Lapis' grip tightened around the weapon, thumb scraping against its sheathe before palming it. "I. . whenever they started to get close I shoved it into Jasper's face and- she seemed upset by it."

"That's odd," Greg wavered from the back, coming up beside Amethyst and eyeing the knife. "Why would she be afraid of it?"

Lapis' eyes briefly met with Peridot's, so quickly that Peridot doubted it had actually happened. Was she going to tell them it was her who had inflicted Jasper with that large scar? That it was Jasper who had given her the tear-shaped scar on her back all that time ago? Judging by the skepticism that riddled Lapis' face, Peridot was hesitant to think that she would.

However, she heard Lapis exhale willfully, sheathing the pocket knife into its case and rubbing the sleek blue surface. "Because she's seen it before."

"What do you mean?" Steven asked before anyone else had the chance to, dark brows pitted with concern.

Peridot moved slowly over to Lapis' other side, just feeling the reluctance of the other woman pouring off of her in ample, dark waves. With a confidence she didn't know she had, her hand extended and rested on the crook of Lapis' arm, hoping to transmit some of her own conviction. Lapis startled slightly at the touch, eyes snapping down to see small fingers wrapped around her bicep. She eventually relaxed under the mindful touch, though, kneeling down to show the handle to Steven.

"You know how I said I got caught by a wild animal out here, a few years ago?" Lapis prompted. Steven nodded tersely, his round, dark eyes glinting with the idea of where this might be headed, but not cognizant enough to register it fully. "It was Jasper. The only reason I was able to fend her off was because she recognized the _blue_ , and. . she was scared of it." Lean fingers kneaded the sheath, knuckles white with nerves. "I didn't want to use it on her then, but it was the only way. Otherwise she might have gotten more than just the skin of my back."

A silence had fallen over the group as they each drank in and understood the details of Lapis' plight. Peridot had known this, of course, but to hear it again made it seem like it made more depth to it. Some unrequited part of her wanted to rush to offer consolation when she heard Lapis' voice tremor as she spoke again. "I wanted to tell you before, but I know you and your dad love this reserve. Even with Nyumbani-Dunia."

"But you didn't have to put your comfort at risk by coming with us every time!" Steven exclaimed, sounding more hurt than cross. His eyes went wide, suddenly, hands flying up to cover his cheeks. "Oh my gosh, and- and you led Jasper and her pride away from us. What if they'd gotten you again, Lapis?"

Lapis had the decency to look sheepish then, twirling a fringe of blue hair between fidgety fingers. "I wasn't exactly thinking when I did that. I just. . . ran off. But I didn't want to let the pride get any of you, either."

Pearl uncrossed her arms, pale eyes dark with thought as she regarded their rescued companion. "There had to be an easier way to get the pride to lose interest in us," she insisted. "Ones that don't involve throwing yourself under the bus."

"That's a probable argument," Peridot joined in defense of Lapis, finally finding her voice (she was sure it was somewhere near her spleen with how long it took), "but I doubt we could have stopped and formed a definite plan without being taken down by Jasper." Pearl looked like she wanted to argue, but Garnet shook her head at the birdlike woman before she had the chance to.

"Yeah," Lapis murmured, casting Peridot a grateful look before reaching over and resting her hands on Steven's tense shoulders. "It's okay, Steven- I'm okay. It. . wasn't exactly pleasant, but. . I'm here, and we're all alive." Her eyes darkened a moment, like she'd just realized something was amiss. "Did Greg's dispatch team not come?"

Greg hummed ruefully. "By the time we'd stopped running from Nyumbani-Dunia, we couldn't recognize where we were. Especially not in the dark like that."

"You didn't try to call in?" Lapis raised a brow.

"We did in the morning, but, the radio must have busted when I fell on my side trying to get out of the brambles." Greg motioned to Peridot. "Peridot has the walkie right now. It's cracked and busted all over the place."

As if on cue, Peridot dug the device out from her pocket, showing what progress she had made on their last stop. She had managed to fix the speaker, but all that they managed to hear from it was unintelligible static. The morse code key had actually been lost, she'd noticed during the sit-down; but she didn't think anyone here knew morse, save for maybe Garnet, because you never knew what might be in that big square block of hair.

"I've managed to fix what I can without a tool to work with," she explained, gesturing to the parts of the device that were halfway restored. "But the circuit board still needs delicate work- work that I can't just do with my fingernails. It'd be too clumsy, and I'd risk scratching something that shouldn't be." A scowl fell on her face as she sulkenly turned the walkie over. "I wish I had my multi-tool."

"A multi-tool," she heard Lapis mimic. Peridot turned to give her a puzzled look before she found a blue knife handle thrust into her face. "Will this work, do you think?" Lapis tried, unsheathing the sharp silver blade with a _click_.

Coincidentally, something in the stubborn cogs in Peridot's mind also made a _click_.

"It's worth a shot," Peridot determined, taking the pocket knife from Lapis' hands (she inwardly noted that it was warm from being held so tightly) and turning the radio back over to its front. The blade was definitely well-kept. She didn't want to risk slitting her own finger with the thing, so she quickly went to work, trying to fiddle with the delicate circuits of the inside board.

Something had been disconnected during Greg's fall, and Peridot was determined to find out just what. With the sharp, tapered tip of the pocket knife she was able to maneuver around the layers of the circuit board, regarding and checking circuits until. . .

"A- _ha!_ " Peridot sat back and admired her work, snapping the front case of the radio back into place. "Now it should pick up more than useless static. Let me see. . ." Her fingers wrapped shakily around the receiving pivot, throwing the now sheathed pocket knife back to Lapis and asking Greg what station the reserve staff used before trying for a response.

On bated breath the crew waited for any sort of response from the static feedback growling out from the walkie speaker. Peridot's knuckles had paled several different shades with how tightly she was holding the device, counting and praying to some unnamed African sky deity that they would break through the radio barrier and find help.

When twenty seconds passed by with nothing but garbled radio static coming in response to their distress call, Peridot sighed bitterly and lowered the radio. "I guess it didn't go through."

 _Szztt- cop-ssstt_. _Distress ca-szzzt. Please respond, sssst._

Peridot's head went up so quickly that she could've gotten whiplash, bringing the radio up to her face as actual _voices_ came in through the speaker. Her head joyously whipped around the group, pairing eyes with Lapis and seeing her own relief mirrored on that of her freckled face.

"Yes, yes!" Peridot shouted into the receiver. "This is the crew of Greg Universe- we succumbed to engine failure yesterday evening at roughly 18:00, and have been running from the game-" she stopped with a shudder as the radio spasmed in her hands, the voice on the other side growing fuzzy and incoherent for a moment. "No, no, no-" Peridot cried, smacking the radio upside its face like a malfunctioning television remote. "Come on, you cloddy radio, pick up!"

There was more fuzzy static until salvation came in the form of clipped, static words. _Please state your location so a rescu-sssszztt- come to your location._

"We're by the- uh- we're by a tall sandy bluff!" Greg voiced from over Peridot's shoulder, eyes squinted against the setting sun as he explained their whereabouts. "Just past a watering hole! There's a herd of impala antelopes over the hill, and-"

 _Dispa-sssztt sent out shortly. Remain in place_.

Peridot could feel hope trickling back into her heart, replacing the dread of never being found again as she let out a triumphant cackle. "They're sending someone to us! To the watering hole!" She rejoiced, lifting the radio up into the air with a great-hearted, beaming grin. "We're saved!"

The group joined in rejoicing, letting out controlled hoops and hollers. Amethyst came over and clapped Peridot gratefully on the back. "I take back _everything_ I said about nerdy techies in high school. This crap can literally save a life!"

"Multiple lives," Garnet corrected, expressing her gratitude by putting her hand on the top of Peridot's head. She didn't even bother to bark at her to remove her hand, she was too relieved.

" _Oooh,_ Peridot!" Steven came vaulting up next after he'd detached from Pearl's waist, throwing his arms around Peridot and squeezing her close to him, very much ignoring the startled gurgling sound she'd made as the radio clattered to the ground. "I can't believe you fixed it! We're gonna go home!"

" _Yeup_ ," she wheezed, rightfully winded after Steven crushed her against him. What did Greg _feed_ this boy?! "Home to where the nearest wild animal is- _wheeze_ \- in the Delmarva Zoo!"

Steven eventually let Peridot go with an unapologetic laugh, instead running off to jump up into his dad's arms to wait for the recovery squad to arrive.

Peridot tried not to bristle when another hand was placed onto her shoulder, but when she looked down and saw slim, tan fingers wrapped around her shirt fabric, her breath hitched. Lapis was standing next to her, an exhausted but enlightened smile gracing her mouth. Then it was her heart's turn to hitch a little bit.

"That was cool," Lapis confided in her. "What you did."

Peridot blinked up at Lapis, hating how warm her face felt. " _Uhh-_ \- um- wow, thanks." It was nearly nightfall, why was she suddenly feeling multiple degrees hotter than before? Was global warming finally happening? Was it an incoming meteor heating up the atmosphere?

Before she knew it, an arm was draped around her shoulders and Lapis had pulled her into an awkward little side-hug.

Yes. Global warming was definitely taking its toll on the planet because Peridot couldn't even feel her skin anymore it was so flushed over with warmth. She could only feel the insane hammering in her chest.

. . . But it wasn't a bad kind of hammering, especially when it smoothed into morphed a little less painstaking. The beating of her heart was still willful, and with a bit of force- but it was more content this time, not panicked.

"I'm. . glad you're okay," Peridot said, rubbing the side of her face sheepishly. "Steven was really worried about you." A pause. ". . I was, too."

Lapis exhaled bemusedly through her nostrils, shifting on the spot. "Yeah. . thanks, Peridot."

Hearing her name uttered so softly- in that voice- made her want to melt on the spot. She felt like she was now barraceded from the dangers of beyond the bluff, encased in this bubble that only she and Lapis were encapsulated within.

That illusion of safety, security, and comfort was shattered, however, when Peridot heard Lapis suck air in through gritted teeth as she pulled away, a hand moving to grab at her injured calf. Peridot frowned. ". . . Is that really just a strained muscle?"

Lapis glanced up from her now crouched position, caught like a deer in the headlights. "It is, but. . ." Her features pinched wryly. "Promise you won't judge me?"

"This is now a judgment-free zone."

Lapis snickered behind the hand pressed to her cheek. "Okay. I didn't strain it running from Jasper. I. . . I strained it trying to climb a tall tree. A baboon took stole a plum I'd found after getting away and I wanted it back, so. . ." She trailed off at Peridot's bemused look, her long arms wrapping diffidently around her shoulders. "What?"

"You chased. . a baboon. For a plum," Peridot echoed, voice lofty. Lapis waited a beat, then nodded. "That's right."

Peridot dissolved into a snickering fit, hands moving up to conceal her eyes behind the glasses. Lapis huffed beside her, nudging her with a stubborn, lean-muscled elbow. "You said this was a judgment-free zone!"

"I'm not judging you," Peridot sniffled in reply, wiping a stray bead of moisture from the edge of her eyelid. "I'm just laughing at you."

"Same difference!"

Lapis chuckled a small chuckle, pushing herself off of Peridot with a grunt. "What about you? Did you guys run into any animals before I found you again. . ?"

Peridot coloured, mortified for what she was about to admit. "Well. . . we found a giraffe."

"And?"

". . . It licked me."

Lapis let out an unrestrained peal of laughter, and Peridot flushed first at the fact that Lapis was laughing because of her, then another when Lapis began to snort amidst the laughs. Oh my stars, she was too far gone. She hadn't believed a single shred of literature that boasted about love at first laugh (or was it sight?) but now she felt ready to jog down to the campus library and join the hopeless romantics in the young adult section.

"It- a giraffe _licked_ you?" Now it was Lapis' turn to repeat what she'd said, her darker face positively glowing with colour at the prospect. "Where?"

Peridot pointed to the top of her head, where her hair was still clumped together and plastered to her forehead with dried slobber. Lapis snorted and reached up, flicking the brittle thread of hair. "I didn't want to ask what happened there. Oh." She pulled her head back, then reached back, slowly, and detached the rest of Peridot's hairs from her forehead. "What's that?"

"What's what- _oh_." Peridot's fingers flew up to conceal her forehead, where she just knew Lapis was looking at the birthmark she usually hid behind a few wayward bangs. "Urm-"

"It's a birthmark," Lapis determined, guiding Peridot's hands away.

And that there was, in the shape of an inverted triangle. Well, not nearly as sharp nor as geometric as one you might find in a school setting, but it was triangular enough to classify as one. That little fun fact had gotten her more than enough teasing in grade school math class.

"Yeah," Peridot breathed, clenching her fingers together, acting on the defensive as Lapis regarded her. "Looks kinda like an inverted triangle, doesn't it?"

"A little," Lapis observed. "You're not the only one with a beauty mark. I have something on my back that looks like a wing." She elaborated when Peridot gave her a blank stare. "Not like in exquisite detail, but, kind of like water wings you'd see in a cartoon."

"Huh." Peridot didn't want to ask to see the mark, firstly because she thought it was mildly inappropriate to ask her to stretch her flannel (she was still wearing Peridot's flannel!) back to reveal more of her skin. Secondly, because she'd just referred to the marr on her forehead as a _beauty mark_. Not even her own mother had thought of it like that; it carried a. . . more proud connotation, as opposed to an embarrassing one.

"How did you manage to get on the back of that elephant?" Peridot wondered aloud, a brow quirked as Lapis blinked. "Elephants are typically very protective of their young."

Lapis rolled her shoulders, mouth pulled in as she gave an unmindful shrug. "I just. . went up to them. They didn't seem alarmed. It seemed safer to ride with them than to keep going on foot. Especially after the baboon."

They sat together in a silence that wasn't quite comfortable, but not quite unpleasant either. But there was a pressuring ambiance, one that Lapis broke before Peridot realized she had the chance to. "Do you think that Nyumbani-Dunia is following us because of me?"

Peridot directed her attention to Lapis, brows high with astonishment. "I highly doubt it," she admitted, believing every syllable. "What gave you _that_ notion?"

Lapis' shoulders rolled in a lackluster shrug, placing her hands behind her head, teeth gritting as she re-adjusted her legs. ". . I don't know. Just a thought. If Jasper had a bone to pick with me then. . why wouldn't she come all this way to get back at me?"

"Get back at you?" Peridot didn't sound too impressed. "You're speaking like she has an intelligence complex."

"Maybe she does. We have to recognize that she's clever, if not cunning." Lapis brought her pocket knife out from her pocket again, observing the sheathed weapon with. . . no, not awe, Peridot noticed, but rather apprehension. Perhaps even fear. "I didn't _want_ to use this on her again, so I didn't. She didn't deserve more than that scar I gave her last time."

Peridot's eyebrows knitted. Jasper had destroyed the Jeep, chased them from what shelters they had, and had been the cause of the scarred injury on Lapis' back. Why was Lapis arguing that she hadn't deserved it? "What do you mean?"

Lapis looked over at her from beneath heavy eyelids, and Peridot felt a pressure build at the back of her throat at that _look_. "She's. . just a lioness, Peridot. I don't think she knows better than to. . defend herself. Defend her pride."

Peridot could feel the weight of Lapis' sentiment, and while she wasn't entirely pacified by the argument, she let herself relax. "If you say so," she supposed, sharing one last. . . thoughtful, look with Lapis before they turned their eyes back up to the pale skies.

"But they're still clods."

Lapis only snorted.

. . .

They waited some time before the sky had changed hues. Milky, ragged red fingers reached out from the edge of the sky, bruising the dusty blue of day and willing it to the dusky velvet of night. Peridot and Lapis had been laying against a warm boulder when they heard Pearl calling everyone's attention.

"Everybody, look! It's the dispatch!"

Lapis and Peridot turned their heads, shared a concurring look that lasted only a heartbeat, before they climbed up and rushed join the others. Already their hands were flailing in the air to gain the distant vehicle's attention, and it seemed to work! The rover headlights shifted in their direction, growing larger and brighter as the rescue team drew came over the horizon.

"Oh thank the stars," Peridot breathlessly laughed, leaning against Lapis, and warming to the touch when she was supported in the endeavor. "I thought I'd never see another human again."

The vehicle was quickly approaching, so Peridot turned turned around to grab Greg's walkie-talkie, then stopped in her tracks. All of the joy she'd felt previously was sucked out of her being, for running at breakneck speeds towards the relieved group from the opposite horizon, a sky bleached in bloody red and smeared over with dark, rumbling clouds, was Nyumbani-Dunia.


	6. The Final Crawl

" _Run!_ "

Peridot didn't even know who yelled the order- stars, it might have even been _her-_ -but she took off behind the others as they pelted towards the rescue vehicle. The wind raced past Peridot's face like a whip, the humid, sticky air making each intake of air feel like she was ingesting cotton.

She wasn't sure who was ahead or behind her because she suddenly had a very dire case of tunnel vision, the speck of light at the end being the glittering yellow headlights of their rescuers. Unfortunately this rendered her rather clueless as to where her boots were stomping, and at least twice she had to be caught before she fell face-first into the earth, saved first by Garnet yelling orders and then by Pearl, features hard with resolution.

The vehicle was coming up fast, but Peridot thought that Nyumbani-Dunia was faster. A crash of thunder on the growling horizon sent flames up Peridot's spine as she fumbled, watching the Jeep slow to a crawl. In the driver's seat was a lean, lanky boy with gauged earlobes who couldn't have been any older than Peridot. Next to him was a uniformed safari staff member, shorter and heavier, with curly blonde hair. "Come on!" The driver hollered over the frantic rumbling of the engine motor, flagging the sprinting group over. "Nyumbani-Dunia isn't slowing down any! C'mon!"

"Lars!" Steven cried out, having apparently recognized the driver. But the driver's name couldn't matter less to Peridot at that instant. She was _not_ about to be lioness chow, not when safety was so close.

Pearl was the first to reach the vehicle. She elegantly jumped into the first available seat, motioning for the others as Garnet flew in beside her, followed by Greg who hoisted Steven up with a huff. He went in shortly thereafter, followed by Amethyst in the next seat over, before Lapis claimed the last row with a grunt of effort.

Peridot was pulled in last by Lapis, onto the furthest seat in the back as the door slammed shut behind her and the car vaulted off with the screeching of tires and the crunching of soil.

"Are you all okay?" Lars shouted from the driver's seat, gaze snapping back to observe his panting, ragtag band of rescues. "None of you got a piece taken out of you by the crazy lady lions?"

"I can't feel my legs," Amethyst wheezed dramatically from in front of Peridot and Lapis, leaning onto Greg as she tried to regain her breath and her bearings. "But, otherwise, I'm feelin' pretty okay."

Steven made a mewl of a sound, hands wrapped tentatively around his right ankle. Garnet was on him in an instant, gently pulling away the boy's hands and pinning her lips assertively. "Steven has a cut on his ankle," she revealed, fingers gently pressuring a swollen slash on Steven's pale foot.

"Here," the woman sat beside Lars offered, leaning back from the passenger side and handing the crew a first-aid box. Suddenly the vehicle lurched to the side, earning a few startled shrieks out of the riders as the woman spun on Lars. "Lars, are you insane?!"

"No less than the angry wild cats trying to jump onto the Jeep!" The skinny man spat back without venom, knuckles turned white with strain as his head stuck out the window. "Wild cats that are getting _very_ close to us, Sadie!"

Peridot, short of breath, dared to take a peek outside her window, and immediately snapped back into the safety of her seat, practically clinging to Lapis' side. "One of them is right by the rear-side tires!" She hissed. She hadn't seen which lioness it was but that didn't matter because whoever she was, she was right _there_ and she was _not_ here to make acquaintances.

Lars whipped the vehicle around again, like he was on a tight roundabout, and Peridot felt herself slide into Lapis, the momentum of the shift pulling her heart up into her brain as it howled with fear. "Be _careful!_ " She seethed, her frustration rooting from the primal trepidation that coiled in the pit of Peridot's stomach. "You'll flip the Jeep over at this rate!"

"I won't!" Lars clipped back, sounding miffed by Peridot's misgivings. "Just hold on!"

"What do you _think_ we're doing?!" Pearl shouted back, hands gripping the ceiling rails with the conviction of someone much brawnier than she. "We need to get out of here!"

Lars' vehicle roared vivaciously as the Jeep tore through the grass, natural shrapnels clattering against the windshield as another rumble of thunder crashed through Peridot's ear drums. It was Garnet who pointed out the macabre pool of clouds decaying in the blood-red sunset sky, as dark as the dismay that made Peridot tense to the touch.

"Do you think driving into that storm will remove Nyumbani-Dunia from us?" Garnet shouted to Lars, but Peridot couldn't see his face as he turned to stare out of his side mirror. "It might," he charged, calling for the group to hold on tight as he sped towards the broiling mass of thunderclouds.

Peridot took a sparse glimpse outside once more, mindful not to let a single part of her face stray outside the safety of the metal framing. This time she was able to see _who_ exactly was in hot pursuit of the vehicle. "Jasper!" She blurted through gnashing teeth, promptly scooting back along the seat towards Lapis. "She's still on us!"

There was an incensed roar that Peridot had to assume came from Jasper outside, followed by the obedient baying of the other lionesses. "What're they gonna do?!" Peridot whispered, her voice a higher octave than normal. "What're they doing now?"

Her response was not Lapis' voice, but rather the monumental force of the vehicle being rocked to one side. Peridot screeched, arms flailing to get as far away from the Jeep's window as possible as a shaggy, maned face emerged in her window, amber eyes sharp as flame as a huge paw swooped in. Lars strained with the steering wheel as the Jeep clattered back onto four wheels, the sheer propulsionary force enough to knock the attacker off.

"Ha!" Peridot beamed wildly at the door as she heard monstrous claws scrape fruitlessly at its surface as Jasper was bounced off of the side door, a vexed growl making it very clear she wasn't happy about it. There was a thud of a heavy mass hitting the ground running, and Peridot could make out wisps of reddish hair whipping just below the window frame. "She can't get to us when we're all the way over here!" Peridot realized breathlessly. "Oh stars."

. . . As it turns out, that thing that she was sure would blockade her and Lapis from Jasper's claws was only a thin sheet of metal separating her from sudden death. Peridot's stomach felt like it dropped through the bottom of her seat when a huge paw hooked into the handle of the door, and when Peridot heard it pop open- and the door following shortly after- she knew she was dead.

The sky roared as Jasper's furious claws sunk into the edge of the seat as the maned lioness heaved herself into the moving vehicle, a snarl ripping out from her throat as Lars pointedly swerved the vehicle to try to dislodge the beast. Peridot didn't feel her weight being sloshed around in the back seat. She couldn't even hear the others screaming for her because her heart was thundering too loudly.

She didn't even realize Jasper had grabbed onto her until she was being yanked out of the gaping door.

Her voice was left back on the Jeep seat next to Lapis- whose voice was the only she could register as her pulse bellowed in her ears, pain shooting through her back when she felt her spine grind against the metal frame of the door's edge. Pain engulfed her bad knee as she felt the monumental force of the lioness thrash and continue to drag her out from the vehicle, and despite just how unclear and incoherent her shellshocked thoughts were- she was able to register that she didn't. . . feel like she was being punctured by huge, slobbering teeth.

She noticed that a moment too late though, as the only thing left of her in the Jeep was her head. Her arms quickly flew down to cover her face as she prepared for a harsh, painful impact with the ground- but the ground, or her arms, never came. Strain knotted into her left arm muscles as she stole a panicked glance upwards, and in her tear-blurred vision there was Lapis Lazuli, holding onto her hand with as much power as Jasper had on her leg.

Peridot realized she'd been screaming, because she couldn't hear Lapis' terrified orders over the sound of her own outcries. "Peridot! Your leg! She's got your _prosthetic_!"

 _What?_ Peridot looked down her body to the foot currently trapped between Jasper's clenched jaws, and sure enough, it was her metallic prosthetic limb that was being crunched- not her actual flesh and bone! But stars, that didn't mean the pressure being exerted on her knee wasn't absolutely killing her!

"Wh-wh-" She sputtered, not quite having regained motor controls quite yet. "What do I do, what do I do?!"

"Kick her off!"

"Kick her off?! Lazuli, are you _crazy_?!"

Lapis' teeth dug so tightly into her bottom lip that Peridot could see crimson welling between the chapped creases, her head sharply flying up to the others in the Jeep who were watching Peridot's attack with horror. Her head flew back to Peridot then, rich brown eyes somber with determination. "Do you trust me?"

Another roll of thunder distracted Peridot from what she'd asked. " _What?_ "

"Do you trust me!"

Peridot swallowed thickly. The pain that was progressively reaching up her leg and into her abdomen from being pulled from both directions dulled her thought process, but even so, the faith in her voice betrayed all of her discombobulation. "Yes."

Immediately Lapis moved into action, pulling Peridot further into the Jeep with a groan of effort. Peridot felt herself shift upwards, inch by inch, until suddenly- "whoa!"

"Trust me. . ." Lapis growled, teeth bared as she essentially crawled on top of Peridot and leaned out of the vehicle, a willowy arm outstretched to try to reach for the fastening on Peridot's prosthesis.

"What're you _doing_?!" Peridot yelped, her delirium not quite helping with registering the fact that Lapis Lazuli was currently on top of her and sticking her face out in the open where it could be crunched by a lion. "Wait-!"

Her frightened yelps were quickly joined by the concerned voices of the rest of the safari crew, Lars and Sadie included, as Lapis lurched outwards.

It must have been only a heartbeat, but Peridot felt as though time stretched for eternities in that moment.

She felt the familiar constraint of her prosthesis socket loosen, followed by the click of a clasp and socket unravelling, and suddenly, Peridot was being yanked back into the safety of the Jeep, the car door slamming shut behind her. A stifled cry escaped her jaws when the crown of her head collided with the opposite side-door, body reflexively curling in on itself as hands raced to cover the thudding spot.

"Peridot!" Came a voice that should have been familiar, invading her muddled senses as she looked blearily up at a dark, freckled face framed by blue bangs. "Peridot, are you okay? Can you hear m-"

Peridot's lips were suddenly on Lapis', successfully rendering the blue-haired woman silent. The embrace was a raw entanglement of tastes: blood, sweat, and a hint of salt that briefly reminded Peridot of the ocean. As quickly as she had come upon it, though, it stopped, and Peridot was reeling backwards to grip at the window frame for support as she tried to still her thrumming heart.

Peridot kind of knew how impulsive that had been, but anxiety be _damned_ , this woman had just saved her life for what must've been the umpteenth time. A useless lesbian could only do so much when all these emotions were just rolling over her, not unlike the brooding storm clouds that they were speeding towards. Lapis was still frozen in place where she'd been kissed, a hand risen up to conceal her lips.

Both of them ignored how the rest of the crew was absolutely losing it. Even Garnet was grinning ear-to-ear! Despite how raw adrenaline still had a hold fastened onto Peridot's lungs, she recognized the mortification that made her face blossom with colour. "What're you looking at?" She snipped stubbornly to the others, who pointedly looked the other way- all except for Amethyst who was making a lewd, knowing gesture before finally turning the other way. Peridot tilted her head back at Lapis, trying to figure out if she'd moved. . . closer in the past few seconds.

She didn't have time to consider it much, because another ominous clap of thunder reverberated through the air. The hair on her neck bristled with apprehension when Lars called their attention to the fact that they were about to head into the mouth of the storm.

Amethyst was the one to stick her head out of the door next, her fluffy hair whipping in the aggressive artificial winds. "Jesus, they're still right behind us!"

"Are they falling back any?" Greg inquired, but got a vigorous shake of Amethyst's head in response. "Nope. I think they're even angrier."

"Seriously?" Steven piped up, weaseling his way across Garnet's lap and trying to peek outside to see Nyumbani-Dunia, but Pearl stopped him before he could. "I really wouldn't advise sticking your head out in the open- any one of them could jump up and snatch you out?"

"But Peridot's fine now!"

"I'm- _uh_ \- currently without a _leg_ -" Peridot spoke up from the back, but was readily ignored by the flustering crew up front. Another callous roar split the coming night, deepened by the darkness that was quickly engrossing the vehicle as it plunged into the mouth of the storm. Peridot hadn't expected such a sudden progression, especially not when she suddenly felt hot, muggy raindrops sputtering against her back.

Again, the raincoat she had stored in her pack would have been mightily handy right now.

Sadie, seemingly the most well-tempered of them all, took a sharp glance out of the rear-view mirrors, and told them what she saw. "Most of Nyumbani-Dunia's stopped!"

"What do you mean most of them?" Pearl asked. "How many are still following?"

"I thought cats didn't like water!" Steven butted in next, giving a small gasp of surprise when a raindrop flew in and dimpled his nose. "I know _my_ Lion doesn't. . "

"You have a _lion_?" Peridot choked from the back.

"Oh, no, he's my cat! Totally normal cat. Well, except he's really big and really fluf-"

"No time for that!" Lars' commanding voice sounded in from the front, drawing everyone's wide eyes and pounding ears. "I'm headed towards the gorge. The Diamonds are still on us."

Peridot wanted to throw her head back and kick her foot like a child at his dire tone of voice. Couldn't the crew just catch a damn _break_? "Wha-who- who are the Diamonds?!" She shrilled, feeling as patient as she did _not_ look.

"And where's Jasper?" Lapis panted after her, taking a look out the back for herself.

"Um-" Greg began to speak, but settled instead for making an alarmed holler when the Jeep skidded through a slippery pool of mud. "The Diamonds; they're the. . . betas of the pride, you could call them? They, uh- _whoa_!" There was an ominous _thunk_ on the Jeep roof, one that made Peridot's heart copy the sound as she watched a dent form in the metal. Everyone, for once, was utterly silent as the thunking progressed towards the front of the Jeep. A sleek, angular lioness' face suddenly materialized right in front of Sadie's part of the windshield, brownish-yellow fur smeared over with mud and debris, teeth fully bared. "Yellow!" Sadie yipped, shrinking back into her seat as one of the Diamonds tried to smash in the windshield with her muzzle.

"Sadie!" Lars gritted his teeth, knotting one set of fingers around the wheel as he tried to grab for something Peridot couldn't see. "Get off of there you crazy she-lion!"

Amethyst was the one to howl next, jumping a foot off of her seat when she looked outside her mirror to see a pale-furred, almost albino-like lioness with icy eyes and thick fur that bunched around her throat jogging in pace with the door. "We got a white chick over here!"

"Blue Diamond!" Sadie informed over her shoulder, never taking her eyes of off the lioness on the windshield. "They're sisters!"

"Sisters with a superiority complex," Lars muttered from beside her, having given up on finding whatever it was he's been reaching for and fixing his hands firmly on the steering wheel. "Hold on tight! I'm gonna take another swerve!"

"Not again," Pearl whimpered, holding a bit tighter onto Steven as the Jeep veered sharply to one side, successfully knocking Yellow Diamond from the roof and stopping Blue Diamond in her tracks, both letting out provoked, maddened bellows.

"That'll teach 'em!" Lars sneered, focusing his attention back on the wet, blustery savannah ahead of them. Peridot didn't know what he saw then, but his face was blanched thoroughly of colour. "Oh."

The dip in his voice made Peridot's stomach weigh down, like she's swallowed a brick. She was afraid to ask what he'd noticed. "Oh _what_?"

Sadie must have been the first to see what the driver had seen, sucking in a breath. "Brace yourselves!"

"For what?" Steven's voice, something innocent in the middle of this chaos, was quickly drowned out by the crunching of worn tires against damp rock and spitting out mud in their wake.

Suddenly Peridot was flying above her seat, just barely managing to stop herself from crashing into another metal frame as the Jeep drove off the edge of a yawning ravine. She was sure she was wailing now, because she could hear her voice joined in the terrifying cacophony of screams as the Jeep dove down into the gorge.

They hit the ground _hard._ Even the Jeep gave a noise of protest as it made contact with the soddy, rainswept soil, and for a fearful moment Peridot thought they were about to lose another functioning vehicle. Fortunately this one was more resilient than their last, as after a moment it seemed to catch on and begin tearing up the ground and racing into the ravine.

Pearl was the first to speak, having picked her voice up before anyone else could even muster the strength to breathe again. "Why exactly are we taking this- _whoaa!_ \- specific route?" She inquired with a cry as Lars swiftly evaded a dead tree that sat in the middle of the pathway. "There's only one way to go! What if we're cornered?"

"We won't be," Garnet informed from beside her, hands secured firmly on the frame of her door. "This gorge opens up later, doesn't it?"

"Took the words right out of my mouth," Lars said from the front, looking like he was smirking from the angle of his cheeks. "But we're not outta this yet. Hey- you in the back!" Peridot started, looking up to see Lars' purposeful eyes boring into her from the rear-view mirror. "Me?"

"No, the blue lady next to you!" Lars clipped. "Are they still after us? The lionesses?"

Now it was Lapis' turn to looked startled, quickly moving to check through the back window. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but-"

"Lemme guess, they're still after us?" Amethyst sighed loudly.

". . Yeah."

"Fantastic," Peridot muttered to herself, taking a moment to look back with Lapis. The Diamonds had wasted no time in bounding down the trail of water-swept boulders that the Jeep had thankfully roared over without incident. Their fur was clogged with twigs, leaves, rain, and mud, but the substances masking their fur did nothing to mask the fury in their gazes. Despite how they still seemed intent on chasing the vehicle down, Peridot noticed they were getting farther and farther away. "They're losing speed, and fast!"

There was a collective sigh of relief from the others, herself included, before they sucked the relieved breath right back into their lungs when Lars slammed harshly on the brakes. The tires squealed unhappily as they ruptured the unstable earth, sending the entire crew vaulting forward in their seats.

"Why'd you stop?!" Amethyst clamored, picking herself up from the dirty floor of the Jeep. Peridot couldn't help but imitate her sentiment because why in the name of all things holy had they _stopped_? "The Diamonds will catch up!" She joined in, but was completely ignored by Lars, who was staring straight ahead of them. What could possibly be- _oh_.

Not ten feet away from the bumper of the vehicle stood Jasper, her gingery pelt extended to its fullest length despite how the rain poured down from the reddish, bruised clouds and clung to her broad frame. Each individual hair on her mane was bristled with ire, and the look in her yellow eyes made Peridot's amputated limb ache with the memory of having her prosthesis taken.

It was still for a moment, save for the constant pounding of the rain held at bay. Jasper was the one to break the silence, her breathless snarl cutting through the rainfall as she began to pace towards the Jeep. The entire group tensed, waiting for the maned lioness to break into a sprint and tear into them, but the beast raised her head up, ears raised high with consternation.

"What's she doing?" Peridot whispered rawly to Lapis, her voice only loud enough for her ears to hear. Lapis shook her head cluelessly as Jasper stood still as a statue in the middle of the ravine. Another rumble of thunder shook the ground, except- this time, the ground kept rumbling. "What the-"

" _Stampede_!" Lars hollered, adjusting his mirror and showing the others the huge, swarming mass of wildebeest pouring down the ravine pathway they'd come in from. Their thundering hooves echoed in the ravine, bouncing off of the muddied walls and their braying rising up through the rain. Peridot just had to take this specific group's especially bad luck with a grain of salt at this point. "Drive!"

Lars didn't wait for a second order, foot slamming into the accelerator as mud sprayed up behind the vehicle. The crew jarred at the sudden stimulus, thrown back into their seats as Lars dove around Jasper, ignoring her whipping snarl of aggravation. Peridot could feel the pounding of the wildebeest as they flooded down, down, _down_ into the ravine, aimlessly baying and hollering as they crowded in. She had a weird sense of deja-vu, making her lips pinch with thought.

Steven's ragged gasp drew hers and Lapis' attention as he pointed forward, ahead of the Jeep where two huge trees were crookedly positioned in their pathway. "Lars! The trees!"

The trees were wide, with their branches swinging wildly in the storm. If they got stuck there, between the trunks, they were goners. If Nyumbani-Dunia didn't ever get back to them, they would be crushed by the wildebeests. "We're not gonna make it!" She shouted over the stifled muttering of the others when Lars made no attempts to turn around.

"We'll make it," Lars asserted, eyes narrowing as he pushed harder on the gas pedal as they sped towards the haggard gap that Peridot was sure was _way_ too small for the Jeep to slip through. Peridot didn't have the will to challenge the driver again, instead resorting to clinging to her seat with all the strength she possessed- no, wait, that was _Lapis_ she was clinging onto- as she and the others braced for impact.

The sound of metal crunching and scraping left as soon as it came. The Jeep pressed through the opening, forcing its way through and careening forward, through the branches and the bush. They teetered precariously for a moment before the tires leveled again and Lars tore off towards the dusky light that had emerged at the end of the gorge.

Peridot quickly let go of Lapis with a stammering ' _s-s-sorry_!', ignoring the way her heart skipped a beat when Lapis steadied her as she tried to get a look at the trees they'd crunched through. She could spot out three forms trying to pass through- one ginger, one gold, and one white- before they stopped and snapped at the wildebeests as they broke through the barrier, sending branches clattering haphazardly to the slick earth. The beasts at the head of the stampede seemed spooked by the splintering crashes, veering to an aggressive stop just in front of the trampled debris.

Peridot could no longer see Jasper or the Diamonds in the giant herd of wildebeest, but she could hear the lioness' enraged baying competing with the thunder that saw them out of harm's way.

". . . Saved by the guys who killed Mufasa," was Amethyst's final remark, watching through the back window as the Jeep and all its inhabitants sped to safety.

The crew reached the rescue hostel no later than ten at night, escaping the run some time after driving out from the ravine. Steven had fallen asleep against Amethyst's shoulder, whose head was resting on top of Steven's, heavy eyelids drooped down over weary eyes. Garnet had remained awake and watchful, while Greg and Pearl talked quietly to one another until they reached the rescue centre.

Peridot had shrunk back into her seat, having taken off her overshirt and wrapping it around her now very missing leg. Lapis had squeezed in some time ago, the two of them sitting in companionable silence. If companionable was even a sufficient term to describe it, given the way Peridot's stomach rolled giddily when she could feel Lapis' body heat bleeding into the space between them. Peridot wanted to speak up, to ask about their, um. . . _moment_ , after Lapis had pulled her back into the Jeep earlier. But when she opened her lips to try to say something, Lapis only gently nodded her head, like she understood. Peridot noticed that she was blushing, too.

Greg carried the sleeping boy out from the Jeep when Lars rolled to a stop in front of the doors to the tiny clinic at the edge of the hostel. Garnet prompted Peridot to follow to get some form of apparatus for her leg, an offer that Peridot accepted with a small huff and flush as she hobbled out of the vehicle. To her surprise, Lapis followed after her, a slight smirk on her lips. "You're going to need help getting in there," was all she said as she allowed Peridot to hook an arm around her neck and led her inside.

As it turned out, the clinic didn't have any custom-made prostheses for Peridot to readily use, but she wasn't all too surprised. She accepted a singular crutch, hoisted it beneath her armpit and was led by one of the staff into the housing quarter of the hostel.

Peridot didn't even care that she was still in her damp, sweaty, and probably odorous clothes when she collapsed onto the bed, Lapis happily following suit in the bunk across from her, falling face-down into the mattress. The last thing Peridot remembered seeing before falling asleep was the tear-shaped scar peeking out from behind Lapis' shapely shoulder blade as her chest softly rose and fell.

. . .

Morning came too quickly. Peridot awoke from a deep, dreamless sleep, her body incapable of movement until she opened her eyes and gave a resentful grunt at the light streaming in through the traditionally patterned curtains at the end of the room. She squinted against the brace of what had to be late morning, struggling to put her glasses back on her nose and making out her surroundings.

Amethyst was still asleep a few bunks away, snoring with a pillow pressed into her face. Peridot assumed sleepily that the pillow was Pearl's doing. Across from the snoring woman was Steven, readjusting the bandaging the clinic had given him last time to properly conceal his cut. He seemed to notice Peridot had awoken, sending her a bright, timid smile and waving his hand.

Peridot waved groggily back, rolling over to collapse onto her back as her eyes lingered on the bunk directly across from her. Lapis was still asleep, thick blue hair stuck every which way, and with a wry quirk of her lips, Peridot noticed that she was snoring too. _Heh_.

Peridot moved up from the bunk and shuffled out of the hostel room, finding Pearl, Garnet, and Greg at the hub. They had obviously spruced themselves up a bit, hair cleansed of grime and wearing fresh safari uniforms that the staff must have lended to them. Greg was the first to notice Peridot, sending her a spent smile and waving her over. "How're you holding up, kiddo?" He asked when she arrived. "Sleep well?"

"Mm-hmm," Peridot murmured. "How long have you three been up?"

"Garnet and I have been up since dawn," Pearl admitted, sounding a little sheepish. "We wanted to be sure we could contact our parties back at the main reserve camp and let them know what happened, and where we are."

Garnet nodded. "I called your department as well, Peridot. They're relieved to hear you're well- they made arrangements for you to return on a home-bound flight tonight."

Peridot should have been jumping for joy to hear that. She'd be escaping this ruthless outback, and shoved back into the comfort of familiarity. So. . . why did she feel like her chest weighed a few pounds heavier as the three beamed down at her?

"Um- wow, thanks, uh," she bumbled, itching awkwardly at her temple. ". . How am I going to reach an airport? How will I get through without my passport or documents?"

"The reserve is sending a cab down to pick you up soon," Greg explained, nodding towards Garnet for confirmation. "We'll hitch a ride back sometime after- we'll need a bigger cab than the one they had available at seven in the morning."

"As for your papers," Pearl started, "another vehicle is trying to return to where we reported our Jeep broke down to retrieve our belongings. Or, well, what might be left of them. Something should be salvaged from your pack." Pearl sighed contentedly, fingers cupping her cheek thoughtfully. "Oh, it'll be lovely to get back to civilization. And getting my camera back! There were so many birds I'd never seen out there."

"Your biology team said they would cover for you if the system gives you any trouble on the way back," Garnet finished. Peridot felt marginally better after learning she'd be walking through airport terminal gates with at least half of a plausible identity. Steven emerged from the bunking quarters at that moment, yawning a bright 'hello!' to the conversing group of four.

"G'morning, Stu-ball," Greg greeted, walking over and looping his arm around the boy's shoulders. "We were just talking about what we're going to do now. Peridot's gotta head out in a bit."

"What?" Steven balked, spirited expression muffling behind a look of dismay. "Already?"

"Not for a little bit longer," Garnet consoled. "The cab has to arrive first. They need her back home."

Steven's shoulders sank, making Peridot feel culpable, for whatever reason. Admittedly, Steven's sprightly behavior had grown on her, so she felt compelled to plead her case to him with a benevolent look. "Remember I'm still only a state away? I live in Delmarva, too."

The boy perked up at that, glistening eyes twinkling with elation. "Oh- yeah! That's right! Dad, Garnet, Pearl- can we visit her sometime? _Pleeeease_? The capitol's only two hours away!"

Greg shared a look with the other two women, and Peridot had to wonder who exactly took care of this lively boy. "Sure we can, bud," the father said at last, winking at Peridot as he went to pat Steven's head. "We'll make room somewhere to pay her a visit."

"That'd be. . ." Peridot spoke up for herself then, hand raising as she considered the precautions she'd need to take and measure if these. . . she wanted to claim them as strangers, but, they weren't strangers anymore. They were friends now. The thought made her feel lighter. "That'd be fine. But make sure to tell me when you're coming. Please."

Steven cheered, running over to wrap his arms around Peridot. "Oh, thank you, Peridot! We'll see each other soon, promise! Oh-!" The boy detached from her, leaving her a little dazed, and turned around and dug through a bag Peridot realized he'd been clutching in his hand. "Here! One of the nice ladies here gave me a bag full of snacks- take these for your trip back!"

A few protein bars were thrust into Peridot's face. She tried hide her enthrallment at the notion o eating something, but she was sure the way her hands sped to accept them gave away her excitement. "Thanks, Steven," she whispered graciously, resisting the urge to tear open one of the confectionaries and devour it right then and there. She'd wait for the cab ride, where she had no one but a driver to judge her.

The group sat in the lounge for a while after that, each trading details about what they would do when they returned back to Delmarva. Peridot wasn't exactly sure what she would do when she reached the biology labs again; she had no records to show for work, but she sure had the experience to prattle on about to her colleagues when she got there. Maybe she'd base her term paper on her experiences; _that_ would definitely bump her up a few academic points.

The cab prowled up to the front of the hostel before long, and Garnet got up to lead Peridot to the entrance as she waved good-bye to the others. She murmured her thanks when Garnet held open the door as Peridot emerged on her singular crutch. A white safari cab was waiting for her under the fabric overhang, the driver emerging to open the door. Peridot could read 'Rhodonite' across the name tag on her crew shirt. "I'll take you back to the central camp so you can get to your flight before tonight," Rhodonite explained as she popped open the backseat. "I hope."

"Off you go," Garnet smiled from behind her, hand resting supportively on Peridot's shoulder as she shifted her embrace on her crutch. "I'm glad to have had you with us. I'm sure the others would agree."

"Even when I almost got us killed?"

Garnet chuckled. "Especially then. Now on you go, your flight back to Delmarva will leave at sunset tonight." Peridot staggered towards the open car door, pausing before she could enter, and took a glance back at the hostel doors. The chances of ever seeing any of them again were particularly slim; Delmarva wasn't a big state, not really, but she always had her hands so full of one thing or another. . .

Her mouth formed a tight, saddened line as she turned her back to the hostel, hand bracing the edge of the doors as she began to scramble inside. She paused, though, doubt clouding her gaze. Lapis had still been asleep when she last saw her, so. . she probably wouldn't be coming to send her off. Some part of her chest ached with an unfamiliar cold, like someone had doused a newborn flame with ice water.

" _Wait,_ Peridot!"

Peridot threw herself off the seat and spun around, the flame rekindling in her chest as Lapis threw open the doors and slammed to a halt in front of Peridot, a hand flying to pull back her wild blue bedhead. She looked like she'd literally been pulled out of bed and her face was completely flushed with red. "Here," she gestured quietly, holding out her hand and handing Peridot a folded slip of paper.

Peridot stared at the slip of crinkled yellow paper in between her fingers and looked up, but Lapis was already making her way back inside the rescue hostel. The electric blue hair she'd grown so used to. . . or, no, daresay grown _fond of-_ \- vanished behind the closing hostel doors.

Her eyes went down to the paper again, unfolding it to reveal. . .

"Her phone number," Peridot breathed, her voice higher than she would have lived to admit. A surge of excitement fizzed through her, the bubbly reaching from the tip of her head to the tips of her toes. She'd gotten Lapis' phone number! That was a good sign! A _very_ good sign!

Peridot practically twirled around (losing her balance in the progress and fell, but got up, blithe and undeterred!) and made haste for the cab door, hands just grazing the seat before she stopped dead in her tracks. . and gave a high-pitched, petulant groan she was sure everyone in this blasted continent could hear.

"My phone was in my pack!"

 **Author's Note.**

 **Aaaad FIN!~ Don't worry about Peridot, she bought a phone as soon as she got home and rung her girl up. She's trying to make due until the others mail her documents back overseas.**

 **Hey! Thank y'all so much for reading! I began this story last week and the words just kept on flowing- I didn't even know how it would end, it just sort of found one on its own! Be sure to let me know if y'all liked it, and let me know if you want to see any other kind of Lapidot fic (it's what I'm better at, hh)- whether they be canon-verse or AU! Have a great day!**


End file.
